


Overwriting Cognition

by LikeAPegoryu



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Angst, Friends to Lovers, I don't know, Idiots in Love, M/M, Maybe an implied relationship?, Or I guess it's Lover and Friend to Lovers?, Time Travel, Time Travel Break-it, Time Travel Fix-It, time travel just makes things weird
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-03-31 17:33:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 28,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13980051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LikeAPegoryu/pseuds/LikeAPegoryu
Summary: After getting ejected from Mementos by the Holy Grail, the Phantom Thieves start disappearing from reality one-by-one. Before Akira completely disappears, he hears a familiar voice calling out to him. Now he's reliving his time in Tokyo, except with his memories intact. This time, he will save all of his friends. He won't let any of them suffer. However, things won't go as smoothly as Akira expects. Can he really change this timeline for the better, or will he only make things worse?





	1. Game Reset

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who's read my other fanfic "A New Cognition", this has absolutely nothing to do with it. I'm just uncreative with titles and so I reused the Cognition part of it. Anyways, enjoy!

_ “Hey, Ryuji… When this is all over, there’s something I have to tell you.” _

Those words replayed in Akira’s head as he felt his mind slowly fade from existence. After failing to destroy the holy grail and getting ejected from Mementos, the Phantom Thieves all started disappearing one-by-one. First Ann. Then Yusuke. Then Makoto, Futaba, Haru, and Morgana. When it was just Akira and Ryuji left, the two desperately reached out to hold each other’s hand. Right when they were about to touch, Ryuji faded from existence just like the rest of their friends.

“No… Not you too… Ryuji!!!” Akira yelled out, overcome with despair. He had planned on confessing his feelings to Ryuji after destroying the metaverse, but instead he was now alone, slowly disappearing from this world.

_ “It seems this truly was an impossible game.” A mysterious voice was calling out to Akira.  _

_ “You have failed to reveal the mastermind and save humanity from its fate.” This was the same voice that called out to him before he awakened his Persona, and back at the interrogation room. Who was this mysterious voice?  _

_ “But fear not, for I shall use the last of my power to grant you a second chance.” A second chance? What did she mean? _

_ “Now, go forth. You are the only one who can save humanity from certain doom!” _

Akira opens his eyes and quickly stands up. “Ryuji!” He looks around and he’s on a train, all eyes on him. He sits back down, not sure how to process everything. Was it all a dream? But it felt so real. He takes out his phone and checks the date. April 9th. That was the day he headed for Yongen-Jaya the first time! 

Suddenly he recalls the mysterious voice from before. That’s right, he was given a second chance. He must have been sent back in time to try and save the world again. But what was he supposed to do? If he tries to fight the Holy Grail again, it’ll just end the same way, with him and his friends disappearing. His friends… No, he won’t let his friends suffer the same fate as before! Especially not Ryuji! He knows what will happen, he’s seen the future! He has the power to fix everything that was wrong with his previous timeline and set things right!

Akira got off the station and headed straight for Leblanc. “I’m home.”

Sojiro looks up. “Hm? Home? Oh, you must be that Kurusu kid. Why did you call this place home? You do know this is a cafe, correct?” 

Whoops, Akira realized he said that out of habit. “Sorry, it’s just that this cafe has such a homely atmosphere that I said it without realizing it.”

“Oh, I get what you mean! I always feel right at home when I come here” said the man sitting with his wife at the booth.

Once the old couple left, Sojiro gave Akira “the talk”. The talk about how his criminal record was his fault for sticking his nose into an adult’s business. He had already forgotten how much of an ass Sojiro was in the beginning, but at least he knows Sojiro will soften up in the future.

Everything felt almost identical. Akira cleaned up his room, and just as he finished, Sojiro came up to say how clean it looked. However, Akira didn’t appear in the Velvet Room this time. Did Igor know about his return to the past?

The next day, Sojiro drove Akira to school and mentioned how guys aren’t normally allowed in his passenger seat. Guess he should feel special for sitting there a second time. The events all played out almost identically, with just minor changes from him reacting slightly differently. However, that was about to change real soon. Akira was going to make sure of it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Akira woke up, saying good morning to Morgana. Right, Morgana wasn’t with him anymore. He grabbed his bag and walked down the stairs. It was weird not having Morgana in his bag anymore. Walking out the door, Akira stops in his tracks.

“Hey Boss, do you mind if I borrow an umbrella?” 

Sojiro just looks at him confused. “An umbrella? Sure.” It did look pretty cloudy outside, but was he really that worried about rain? Also when did he hear about people calling him Boss?

Once Akira got off the train, he headed straight for class. If he wanted to make things right, he had to avoid seeing Ryuji here. It was because Ryuji coincidentally said Kamoshida’s keywords that the two of them appeared in Kamoshida’s palace and subsequently arrived late to school. Without that, Ryuji would get the chance to live a normal student life. Well, as normal as he could while still branded as the school’s delinquent. He couldn’t expose Ryuji to the metaverse again. He almost died two times before and even disappeared from reality. He wasn’t going to let that happen again!

School went by excruciatingly slowly. Even though Akira arrived at school on time, everyone was still talking about his criminal record. Seems like there was no getting out of that, although it wasn’t outside of Akira’s expectations. However he did feel weird having no one to talk to. Normally he had Ann, but of course the Ann of this timeline doesn’t know him yet.

Once class ended, Akira quickly left the classroom. He was supposed to save Morgana before lunch, so he was a bit worried about what might be happening to him now that he’s waited an entire school day. He went into the alleyway, quickly saying Kamoshida’s keywords while making sure no one was close enough to get pulled in. Strangely enough, when he arrived, he was still wearing his normal school uniform! What was going on? Why is Arsene not with him? Does this mean only his mind and not his Persona travelled back in time with him? Last time he awoke his Persona to save Ryuji’s life. How will he awaken it now?

Akira continues on into the castle. He may not have his Persona powers, but that doesn’t mean he can’t do anything. For now he has one goal: to save Morgana.

He heads down the dungeons, searching for Morgana’s cell. He almost forgot how disturbing this place was with all the volleyball members locked up ready to be tortured. 

“Let me go!” Akira suddenly hears a familiar voice and freezes in his tracks. Morgana? Is something happening to him? Akira picks up his pace and runs over to Morgana’s cell only to be greeted by the sight of Kamoshida watching as a guard had a foot on Morgana’s back, a sword pointed at his head.

“This cat isn’t as fun as I expected. Execute him and get it over with!” Execute?! So because he and Ryuji didn’t get captured, Morgana is about to get executed?

“Stop!”

Kamoshida’s shadow turned around and looked at Akira. “And who are you supposed to be?”

Akira put his hands in his pockets, trying to act calm. “Just a guy with a criminal record.”

“Oh, I see. So you’re that transfer student. What do you think you’re doing in  _ my _ castle?”

“I’m here to save my friend. Now let him go!” Akira said as he got into a fighting stance.

Morgana looks up at Akira and says something before passing out. “Friend?”

“Hmph, friends with this cat, huh? Then I guess you can be the first one to be executed. Guards, get him!” Kamoshida yelled out. Kamoshida’s guards surrounded Akira.

“Bring it on, asshole! I’ve taken you down once before, I can do it again!” As soon as Akira says that, he feels a sharp pain throbbing in his head. When the pain finally disappeared, he put his hand up to his mask and ripped it off just as he had before, causing Arsene to manifest once again. “Ravage them, Arsene!”

In the blink of an eye, all of the guards were annihilated. Kamoshida’s shadow fell backwards and started crawling towards the wall in fear. Looking at how pathetic Kamoshida’s shadow was made him want to kill him right then and there. After all, it was all his fault Ryuji is the way he is. It’s his fault everyone at school treats Ann like a slut. It’s his fault Shiho will try to kill herself in a few days. Everything was this asshole’s fault.

Akira took a step closer. Then another. With each passing step, Kamoshida crawled further and further away. After a few steps, Akira stopped in his tracks to pick up Morgana and turned around. “As much as you deserve it, I won’t kill you. Before Shiho tries to jump, I’ll have stolen your distorted desires. Just you wait.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Akira quickly ran towards LeBlanc after getting off the train. Morgana was seriously injured, and he had to tend to his injuries. As soon as he shoved open the door to LeBlanc, he was greeted by the stares of Sojiro and all his customers.

“What in blazes? Is that a cat?” Sojiro asked.

Akira was panting. He may have become stronger after training with Ryuji before, but he was back to his old, weak self. “I found him lying in an alleyway. He got in a fight with some other strays.”

“Alright, I’ll go grab the first aid kit. Just head upstairs for now.”

Akira went upstairs and laid Morgana on the bed. Thankfully Morgana didn’t seem to be in any critical danger, but Akira regret waiting all the way until the end of school before helping him. A moment later and Morgana could even be dead right now. He should’ve helped him out before school started. Who cares if he was late? Not like he didn’t deal with it once already.

Sojiro came upstairs carrying a first aid kit. “Here you go, although I’m not sure if these will be of any use for helping a cat.”

Akira takes the first aid kit from him. “Thanks, Boss.”

While Akira is tending to Morgana, Sojiro scratches his head and breaks the silence. “So, are you planning on keeping it? Or will you just release it back into the streets?”

“I’m keeping him” Akira replied. He looks up at Sojiro. “That is, if it’s fine with you?”

Sojiro sighs. “Normally pets aren’t allowed because this is a restaurant, but seeing you like this makes it harder for me to believe you have a criminal record. I think raising a cat will be good for the sake of your probation.”

“Thanks, Boss.”

Sojiro started walking down the stairs. “I’ll be downstairs taking care of the last of the customers. If you need anything just come down and tell me. Oh, and don’t forget to lock up later. I won’t let you use taking care of a cat as an excuse, got it?”

Once Sojiro left and Akira locked up the cafe, he went back upstairs to find Morgana wide awake. “It’s you, that kid back at the palace. Where is this? And why am I a cat?”

Akira was relieved to finally see Morgana awake. He sat down next to him on the bed and started petting his head. “This is a cafe. We’re back in the real world now.”

“The real world? But I’m a human. I should be a human on this side. My true form must still be locked down somewhere in Mementos.” Morgana let out a sigh of disappointment. Meanwhile, Akira stopped petting Morgana, freezing at the mention of Mementos. “Is something the matter?”

Akira shakes his head. “No, it’s nothing.” He didn’t have the heart to tell Morgana that he wasn’t really a human, and that he was a shadow born in the depths of Mementos. He wasn’t sure if Morgana was ready to accept all of it yet.

“Well regardless, you still saved my life. I thank you for that. But earlier, you called me your friend. Do you perhaps know me?”

Akira thinks for a moment. Does he tell Morgana about him traveling back in time, or should he just keep quiet for now? “I might. It’s hard to tell. All you cats look alike after all.”

“Wha- I am not a cat! I am an honest to god human being!” Morgana said as he growled at Akira.

Akira was glad he could talk to Morgana like this again. When he saw all his friends disappear, he thought for sure he’d never see any of them ever again. This time, he was going to save all of them. Ann. Yusuke. Makoto. Futaba. Haru. Morgana. Ryuji... If he was going to do this, he’s going to do it with just him and Morgana. He won’t drag anyone else into this mess.


	2. Cat's Out Of The Bag

“Hey, what are you doing to me?” Morgana growled as Akira stuffed him inside his desk before anyone else arrived in class.

“Sh, keep quiet while we’re in school. The teachers will kick you out if they hear you meowing.”

“Meowing, what do you mean? I’m clearly talking, aren’t I?” Morgana yelled out.

“Do you hear that? Sounds like a cat meowing” a student said as he walked by the classroom.

“Nah, there’s no way. Who’d be crazy enough to bring a cat to school?”

Morgana looks up at Akira. “Meowing? So they really can’t hear me talk? How did you know that?”

Before Akira could answer, students started walking into the classroom. He took out his textbook and pretended to study. Not like he really needed to study anymore, he already knows all of the test answers, after all.

Class was even more boring than usual. At least when they’re learning there’s  _ some _ point to paying attention, but he’s just listening to a repeat of all the old lectures he’s heard. Instead of wasting time mindlessly listening to the same lectures, Akira spent the class making lockpicks. Mr. Ushimura notices Akira and calls him out.

“Kurusu! Since you seem to be paying absolute attention, what are the three components of the human soul according to Plato?”

“Appetite, spirit, and logic” Akira responds without even looking up from his lockpick work.

Mr. Ushimura clicks his tongue. “That’s… that’s correct.”

“Whoa, did you see that? The new transfer must be really smart!”

“He didn’t even look up from his desk. He probably had the answers written down or something.”

The rumors just never stop spreading, do they? Hearing all the students gossipping caused Morgana to feel agitated. Once school was over, Akira grabbed Morgana out of the desk and put him back in his backpack. “What was that all about? All those kids just assumed you were cheating just because you got the right answer!”

“It’s nothing, I’m used to it now” Akira responded as he headed out of the classroom. As soon as he turned away from his desk, he heard a voice behind him.

“Show off.”

Akira turned around and saw Ann just staring towards the front of the classroom bored before getting up and leaving as well. Akira shakes his head before running out the classroom. As soon as he reaches the stairs, he crashes into a student who was walking down from the third floor.

“Ow! Hey, watch it!” the student yelled out at him. Akira looked at the kid, recognizing that voice anywhere. “What are you staring at?” Ryuji asked menacingly.

Morgana starts moving around in Akira’s bag. “Are you okay, Akira? I hear someone’s voice.”

Ryuji looks at the bag. “Is that meowing?”

Akira quickly grabs his bag and heads downstairs again. “Sorry for bumping into you, I’m in a hurry.” As Akira runs down the stairs, Ryuji catches the glimpse of a cat sticking his head out of Akira’s bag. If Ryuji didn’t know any better, he’d say the cat was glaring at him. He looks back where Akira fell and notices an object on the ground. “Is that… a knife?” Ryuji gulped and reached down to pick it up. It was just a rubber knife. He let out a sigh of relief, but wondered why that kid had a rubber knife on him. Regardless, he rushed down after him to give it back.

He goes outside and looks around until he sees Akira in the alleyway with his cat sitting on top of a trash can. He seemed to be playing with his phone. Ryuji runs over about to yell out at the kid before he hears a familiar name. “Kamoshida.”

Hearing that name, Ryuji stops in his tracks before quickly hiding around the corner. Who was that kid, and why did he just mention Kamoshida? He continues eavesdropping, thinking maybe he had some sort of connection to Kamoshida.

“School. Castle.” Akira finished saying the rest of Kamoshida’s keywords into the metanav to show Morgana how it worked. 

Ryuji feels a headache before turning around to see the school gone, replaced by a castle instead! 

Akira and Morgana walk over to the castle. “I see, so you just say the name of a person, a location, and their distortion and you just appear in their castle. An expert thief like myself won’t need it, but I guess it’s a nice tool for a newbie like yourself.” Morgana said proudly.

“What the hell is going on here?!” Ryuji yells as he runs over to Akira. “What happened to the school? What’s with that costume? And is that a talking cat?”

This wasn’t supposed to happen. He wasn’t supposed to involve Ryuji in all this metaverse nonsense again, so why was he here? “Were you following me?” Akira asked.

“Huh? Uh, yeah. You dropped your toy knife earlier when you bumped into me.” Ryuji grabbed the knife from his pocket. As soon as he brought it out, he jumps back and drops it. “Ah! What the hell, I could’ve sworn it was a toy knife earlier!”

Akira walks over to pick up the knife. “Thanks for returning my knife. Now get out, you don’t belong here.”

“W-wait, you’re that new transfer student right? The one with the criminal record. How do you know Kamoshida?” Ryuji asked. Without even saying another word though, Akira grabs Ryuji’s wrist and throws him out of the metaverse.

“Good riddance. That blond monkey was getting on my nerves” Morgana said as he crossed his arms.

“Don’t call him that, Ryuji’s a good guy.”

“What? No way, all those kids are terrible! Especially those two blonde idiots! Ugh, I can’t stand them!” 

“Blonde idiots? Did you just call Lady Ann a blonde idiot?” Akira asked, confused that Morgana suddenly held a grudge against her.

“Lady Ann? Gross, I’d never fall in love with such a rude girl like her. Did you not hear what she said to you when you were leaving the classroom?”

“They’re just misunderstood, Mona. Everyone has their own problems after all” Akira said as he put his hands in his pockets.

“I guess… But I still can’t forgive them. Hey wait, you just called me Mona. Is that supposed to be a nickname, or are you seriously using that as my codename?”

“I just thought it’s be easier to say if we cut out the middle letters. Do you not like it?” Akira asked.

“Hmm… It sounds kinda lame. Do you have any better ideas?” Morgana asked.

“Then how about Prince?” Akira remembered Sojiro telling him and Futaba that it’s what he originally wanted to call Morgana if he got to name him.

“Prince? Gross. I think I’ll take Mona any day.” Looks like Morgana really hates that name. Akira feels bad, but he had to admit Sojiro’s naming sense was terrible. He had a feeling LeBlanc wasn’t even a name Sojiro came up with himself. “And as for you… You look like a Joker to me. What do you think?”

Akira smirks. So many things have changed since he restarted everything that he was expecting a new nickname from Morgana. “I like it. From now on we’re Mona and Joker.”

“Good. Now then, I’ll show you the basics of phantom thievery. Try to keep up with me, okay?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After getting thrown out by Akira, Ryuji landed face first into the hard cement. He gets up and starts yelling at no one. “What the hell was that guy’s problem?!” He looks around and notices everything is back to normal. “What was that place? Why is everything back to normal?”

_ “Welcome back! You have returned to the real world.” _

“The real world?” Ryuji took out his phone and looked at its contents. “Huh? What’s this? It looks like… a navigation app?” Ryuji taps a button, and sees waveforms appearing on the screen. It looks like it’s used for voice inputs. Ryuji thinks back. Before the school turned into a castle, he heard the transfer student say a few words. “What was it that the cat mentioned before? A name, location, and distortion?... Kamoshida... School... Castle?”

_ “Match confirmed. Beginning navigation.” _

“I knew it! Aw man, I’m such a genius!” Ryuji said as he puffed out his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Morgana hates Ann? What has this world come to?! What's next, Kamoshida being a saint?


	3. Wake Me Up Inside

Ryuji appeared in front of Kamoshida’s castle again. “I see the school’s name here, but this is clearly a castle. Also why did I have to say Kamoshida’s name? Don’t tell me that bastard has something to do with all this!”

Ryuji went up to the door, but it was locked tight. “Man, why does it have to be locked? But I don’t see that guy anywhere. He must have gotten in somehow.”

He looked around and found a shaft on a wall to the side. It was a bit high up, but he managed to reach it after jumping his hardest. It did hurt his leg to jump so hard, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle. After Ryuji goes inside, he walks into the hallway and sees an army of soldiers.

“Is that… Kamoshida? So that bastard does have something to do with this weird castle. Why’s he dressed like a king?” As Ryuji was listening in on Kamoshida talking to his army, he failed to notice the guard that appeared behind him. Before he could turn around in time, he was knocked unconscious.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hey Joker, I thought you said we were in a hurry. What are you doing?” Mona asked as he watched Joker continuing to fight more and more shadows. “Also, what’s this about joining your cause?”

Joker shakes his head. “This isn’t right. Why can’t I recruit any shadows?” Joker rushes up to another shadow and ripped off its mask to reveal yet another pixie. He quickly shoots it once and gets into position for a hold up. “Join my cause!” Joker yelled.

The pixie just laughs. “Hah? Join your cause? What do you take me for? I belong to no one but King Kamoshida!”

Joker shoots a warning shot he learned from Shinya.

“W-whoa, chill out! Fine, here’s some money. Now please leave me alone!” The pixie throws out a couple hundred yen before flying off.

“Joker, shadows can’t join us. They’re a part of a palace ruler’s cognition. Your only options are to kill, ask for money, or ask for an item.” Mona lets out a sigh. “And here I thought you were supposed to be familiar with the metaverse. Why don’t you know something so simple?”

“This isn’t right. I have the wild card! I can have multiple personas! Why isn’t it working anymore?”

“Wild card? I’ve never heard of anything like that. But if someone truly had the power to hold multiple personas, they’d probably be unstoppable.”

Joker leans against a wall. Does that mean he no longer has the wild card? This is bad, Arsene is completely useless. His own persona had the weakest moves imaginable, there was no way he’d be able to fight with him past Kamoshida’s palace!

“Hey Joker, I don’t get what’s going on, but we should just move on. Based on the map, I think the next room is the entrance.” Mona starts running towards the door. “Come on, we still have a lot to explore.”

Joker slowly follows Mona, getting further and further away from him. After Mona reaches the railing, he runs back. “Joker, quick, we have a problem! Hurry!”

“What is it?”

“That guy from earlier, I think you called him Ryuji. Kamoshida and his guards captured him! Looks like he’s about to get executed!”

“What?!” Joker ran into the next room and looked down the railing. It was true, there was Ryuji held up by two guards, a sword pointed at him. “Ryuji!” Joker yelled as he jumped down from the second floor. Kamoshida and his guards all looked up to see Joker land on the guard pointing his sword at Ryuji, violently ripping off its mask.

“That idiot, what’s he doing? Now he’s surrounded by shadows!” Mona looks up and comes up with an idea.

The two guards holding onto Ryuji both transform and prepare to fight Joker 3-on-1. Arsene may be weak, but Joker was strong. He still had all the combat experience he accumulated in the past 8 months, and that made up for Arsene’s weakness. After taking out the three shadows, Joker rushed over to Ryuji’s side.

“Ryuji! Answer me, Ryuji!” Joker yelled, holding Ryuji in his arms.

“You… how do you know my name?” Ryuji asked while getting up.

“That doesn’t matter. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a bit beat up, but nothing I’m not used to.”

Joker embraced Ryuji in a hug. “That’s good to hear.”

“Hey now, a little personal space please. I’m having a hard time breathing” Ryuji said, his face turning red.

Kamoshida walked closer to the two. “My my, what a touching reunion. But can you really stick up for this guy if you knew about his history as the track traitor?”

Ryuji’s breath hitched. He finally met someone who didn’t hate him, and now he’s about to lose him so soon.

Kamoshida began explaining what happened. “This guy refused to accept my good will and instead chose to disobey me. Because of him, the track team got disbanded, and-”

“Shut up! Don’t talk as if it wasn’t all your fault!” Joker interrupted, standing up from where he was. Ryuji just looks at him, eyes wide with surprise. “You abused the track team, manipulated Ryuji, and then broke his leg just to get the track team disbanded! Everything was your fault!”

“You…” Ryuji felt tears welling up in his eyes. He quickly wiped his eyes before standing up as well. “You’re right, everything is this bastard’s fault. It’s your fault for ruining everyone’s lives! We’re gonna make you pay! You hear that, Kamoshida?”

As if on cue, Ryuji felt a sharp pain in his head and started thrashing on the ground.

“Ryuji!” Akira yelled out before he felt a wave of pain shoot through his head as well. It wasn’t as bad as earlier when he awoke Arsene, but it was enough to cause him to drop to one knee and hold onto his head. What was going on?

_Looks like you have finally unlocked some more of my power. It seems like the spirit of rebellion within you was locked behind your feelings for your friend here. You are not quite ready for my true power, but one day you will be. Now go forth and protect the one you love!_

Joker gets up and feels different. Arsene was a lot stronger than before. Far stronger than he remembered any of his personas feeling! Does this mean this entire time he had been fighting with only a fraction of Arsene’s power? This must have been what it felt like for Haru when she first joined. Regardless, with Arsene the way he is, he felt like he actually had a shot without relying on the wild card.

Joker looked over to Ryuji who was now ripping off his signature skull mask, screaming in pain as his face was covered in blood. The familiar figure of Captain Kidd appeared behind him.

Kamoshida’s shadow looks over at them and walks back. “Hmph! The two of you alone can’t do anything against my army. Guards, execute them!”

Skull and Joker get into a fighting stance. As soon as a large group of guards appeared in front of them, a chandelier suddenly falls on top, crushing all of them.

“Ha! My plan worked!” Mona said, getting off the chandelier.

“What the hell? Where’d you come from?” Skull asked.

“The second floor. Duh.” Mona looks over at Joker. “I don’t know what made you think that was a good idea, but jumping into the middle of the enemies like that is suicide! You’re lucky my brilliant idea saved your butts.”

The group turns around to see Kamoshida walk around the broken chandelier. “Grr! How dare you destroy my precious castle! All of you, hurry up and execute them!” The guards all surrounded them, although there was enough of a gap for them to escape.

“We need to escape. Quick, this way!” Mona said as he ran back towards the shaft they entered from.

“Wait, we still haven’t secured the treasure route!” Joker yelled at him.

“It’s too dangerous, we have to leave now!”

“We can’t! If we wait, then we can’t save Suzui!” Joker yelled.

Skull looks over at Joker. “What? Suzui? What about her?”

“Ugh! Look, we don’t have time! Besides, your friend here just awoke his persona. He’s too weak to continue. If you don’t want to put his life in danger, then I suggest we leave now!” Joker didn’t want to leave, but he also didn’t want to put Skull’s life in danger.

Reluctantly, the group leaves the castle and heads back to the real world. Akira and Ryuji are panting, having just barely escaped with their lives.

“Man, what was all that about? Why was the school a castle, and why was Kamoshida dressed up as a king?” Ryuji asked.

“Looks like we’ll have to explain everything to him. He’ll need to know what’s going on if he’s going to join our team” Morgana said to Akira.

“What? The cat can talk? Wait, that voice. This is that monster cat from earlier, wasn’t it!” Ryuji yelled out.

“I am not a cat! I am Morgana, and I am a human!” Morgana yelled, growling at Ryuji.

“Okay okay, let’s not fight now. We should go find some place to talk. I know a good cafe that serves amazing curry, I’m sure you’ll love it. We can explain everything once we’re there” Akira says as he stops Morgana and Ryuji from getting into their usual pointless squabbles.

“Oh, curry sounds great right about now! I was gonna suggest beef bowls, but that sounds even better” Ryuji said as his eyes lit up. “Lead the way, uh… Sorry, what’s your name?”

“It’s Akira. Akira Kurusu.”

“Akira, huh? Nice to meet you. My name’s Ryuji. Wait, earlier you called me by my name. How do you know me? And all that stuff you knew about me. You’re not a stalker, are you?!”

Akira chuckles at Ryuji’s accusations. “We can talk when we get to the cafe. Come, it’s a bit far away.”

Morgana quickly jumps into Akira’s bag. The trio heads towards the station, heading all the way to Yongen-Jaya where LeBlanc awaited them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot twist! No more wild card for Akira. Instead, he has an actually useful Arsene.
> 
> As fun as it is to fuse overpowered personas (thank god for perfect Yoshitsune), one thing I absolutely hated was how your starting persona is basically one of the weakest personas ever. Wish Arsene was at least as useful as any other party member's persona.


	4. An Unlikely Duo

“This curry better be worth it! I can’t believe you brought me all the way to Yoncha just for some curry” Ryuji said, disappointed at how far away the cafe was.

“It is, trust me” Akira said as he opened the door.

“Oh, welcome home” Sojiro said. “Is that a friend?”

“Home? I didn’t realize this was a maid cafe. Why is the maid a guy though?” Ryuji asked.

Akira and some of the customers in the cafe laugh while Sojiro just glares at him. “This isn’t a maid cafe. I actually live in the attic here” Akira told him.

“What? You live here?! I see why you brought me all the way to Yoncha now. What’s it like living in a cafe?”

“It’s pretty great. I eat curry for breakfast everyday.”

“Curry for breakfast? Aw man, that sounds amazing!” Ryuji said.

“No fair, I want to taste Boss’s curry” Morgana whined.

“Boss?” Ryuji asked.

“Hm? Did you call me?” Sojiro asked.

“What?”

“Everyone calls me Boss. Although I still have to wonder where Akira heard that name. I could have sworn I never mentioned that around him” Sojiro said as he scratched his beard. “Anyways, you two kids have fun upstairs. But don’t make too much noise, I still have customers in here after all.”

“Alright, Boss. By the way, can you make us two plates of curry? Oh, and a coffee and soda. I’ll pay” Akira said as he put money on the table.

Sojiro waves his hand in the air. “Don’t worry, it’ll be on me this time. But don’t get used to it, I won’t be giving you free food every time you bring a friend over.”

Akira and Ryuji head upstairs. After they set up the table, Boss comes up with two plates of curry, a cup of coffee, a cup of soda, and a bowl of cat food.

“Boss seems like a nice guy” Ryuji said.

“Yeah, he’s pretty great. A bit of an ass at first, but he warms up to people easily” Akira said as he started eating his curry.

Ryuji also picks up his spoon and takes a bite of curry. “Whoa! Dude, this stuff is amazing! You get to eat this every day?”

“Yup! Strangely enough, it never gets old.”

“Man, what’s in this, anyways? I’ve never had curry this good.”

Akira started naming off curry ingredients. Then he started naming Sojiro’s special ingredients. “Honey, apples, chocolate, yogurt…”

“Whoa whoa whoa, dude, what are you saying? This is curry, not some kind of parfait.”

Akira covers his mouth and laughs. “No, those are all in the curry.”

“No way! This curry doesn’t even taste sweet!”

“That’s because it’s only a little bit. If you taste closely, it has a very faint sweetness to it.”

Ryuji took another bite of curry, trying to taste the sweetness in it. “Oh yeah, you’re right. It’s very faint, but it does taste a bit sweet.”

The two boys continue chatting while they finish up the rest of their curry. Morgana is on the side eating his cat food, imagining how good the curry must be for Ryuji to react that way.

“You know, I’m really glad I met you, Akira. I haven’t talked to anyone like this in almost a year, but I feel like we’ve know each other for a long time” Ryuji said as he stared at his empty plate of curry. “Something’s been bothering me though. How did you know my name? In fact, how did you know all that about the track team? I know I’m infamous in school, but I don’t think I’m infamous enough for a transfer student to know so much.”

Morgana jumps on the table. “I’ll have to agree with Ryuji. You even called me your friend when you first met me. Plus you seem far too knowledgeable about the metaverse. Who are you, really?”

Akira looked at the two of them and sighed. He wished it didn’t have to come to this, but it looks like he’ll have to tell them the truth. 

“The truth is… I’m from the future” Akira told them as he stared at the table.

Ryuji and Morgana look at each other before bursting out laughing. “Come on, man! I expected a serious answer from you, but your best excuse is time travel? This isn’t some sci-fi movie.” Ryuji said as he started slapping Akira’s back.

Akira readjusted his glasses. “It’s the truth though! I lived through the next 8 months already.”

“Yeah, and I’m a famous TV celebrity.” Ryuji retorted. Ironically, he can probably considered a TV celebrity in a way. They did appear on TV before when they sent Shido’s calling card. They were also the talk of the world for a while. They even appeared on TV briefly that first time Akechi denounced the Phantom Thieves.

“Fine, if you guys won’t believe me, then I’ll have to prove it” Akira said. “Tomorrow’s the volleyball rally, correct?”

“Huh? Yeah it is. Don’t tell me you’re going to just predict which team will win. We both know Kamoshida’s going to win just so he can stroke his own ego” Ryuji said disappointed.

“Tomorrow at the volleyball rally, Kamoshida is going to aim a volleyball straight at Mishima’s face.”

“What? That asshole!”

“That’s not all. He’ll get a concussion but wake up before school ends to leave early. If we stall him long enough, Kamoshida will also walk over and threaten to kick Mishima off if he doesn’t go to volleyball practice.”

“What? We can’t let him get away with that!” Ryuji yelled as he stood up.

“So you believe me then?” Akira asked.

Ryuji looks away before sitting down. “That’s… oddly specific, but I can’t believe it without seeing it myself. That said, if you are telling the truth, then I’ll feel bad for knowing Mishima will get hit in the face and not doing anything about it.”

“Fine then, how about asking me questions about the future and I’ll do my best to answer them.” Akira picks up his coffee and takes a sip.

Ryuji scratches his head and thinks for a bit. “Uhh, then tell me. Do I get a girlfriend?”

Akira spits out his coffee. “Oh shit, sorry!”

“What the hell, man?” Ryuji yelled out as he got up from his seat.

“Sorry, I’ll go wash that for you. Here, you can borrow some of my clothes in the meantime.” Akira went over to his box of clothes he didn’t unpack and grabbed a pair of his sleepwear. When he turned around, he saw Ryuji with his shirt off and taking off his pants.

“What’s wrong? Are you sick or something? Your face is all red.”

“N-n-n-nothing’s wrong! Here!” Akira threw his clothes at Ryuji and quickly grabbed Ryuji’s old clothes drenched in coffee.

“Man, what’s his problem?” Ryuji asked as he put on the clothes Akira gave him. “Hey Morgana, do you believe Akira’s story?”

Morgana shakes his head. “I don’t know. I want to believe him, but time travel? Still, everything makes sense if we assume that he really did time travel. He might know you if he stalked you or something, but there’s no way he could possibly know me beforehand.”

“I see. I guess we should just believe him for now.”

“Yeah.” Morgana looks away.

After a few more moments, Ryuji breaks the awkward silence between them. “Hey Morgana, is something wrong?”

Morgana shakes his head. “Sorry, I was just thinking, and I want to apologize for misjudging you. The kids at school all said mean things about Akira, and I assumed you were the same when you bumped into him today. But hearing everything that happened between you and Kamoshida, I can’t help but feel bad.”

Ryuji reaches over to Morgana and starts petting his head. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m used to being labelled. At least you’re apologizing unlike all those kids at school.”

As soon as Ryuji hears the sound of footsteps, he quickly stops petting Morgana. The two of them look over to see Akira. “I’m back. I hope you two didn’t argue too much while I was gone.”

“What? Why would we argue?” Ryuji asked.

“I don’t know, but you two are always at each other’s throats.” Akira clears his throat and then starts mocking their voices. “Ryuji, you’re so useless! What was that you stupid cat?”

“What? Dude, the two of us are cool, okay? We wouldn’t say shit like that to each other.”

“Yeah, I have to agree. You were right, Akira, Ryuji was just misunderstood.”

Akira just stares at the two wondering what the hell happened them while he was gone.

“By the way, Morgana and I talked and we’ll believe you for now. I still have a hard time believing in time travel, but things make more sense if we pretend you really were from the future” Ryuji said as he scratched his head. “So what’s the plan anyways? If you’re back in time, it means you have some sort of goal, right? Aw man, now it sounds like we’re living in some really cool movie!”

Akira’s glad that the two of them are getting along, but he can’t help but feel jealous. How pathetic, getting jealous of his own pet cat. His own talking pet cat.

“First off, our goal should be to change Kamoshida’s heart.”

“Change Kamoshida’s heart? Like, turn him into a good guy or something?” Ryuji asked.

Morgana interjects. “Exactly. If we go inside Kamoshida’s palace and steal his treasure, then he’ll suddenly lose all his distorted desires and confess his crimes.”

“Whoa, for real? That sounds awesome! We can finally make that bastard pay for all he’s done!” Ryuji said as he beamed a smile at the group.

“It’s not that simple though” Morgana continued. “Stealing his distorted desires could be dangerous. In some cases, it even causes a person to lose their dreams, their hopes, even their desire to eat or sleep. They essentially have a mental shutdown. Worst case scenario, he could even die.”

Ryuji looks at Morgana in surprise. “What? Whoa, hold on. So there’s a chance we can kill Kamoshida? I mean, I hate the guy, but I don’t think I’m willing to go that far.”

“Actually, there’s no risk of killing him.” Morgana and Ryuji both look over at Akira. “The scenario that Morgana mentioned, a mental shutdown, it has happened once, but it wasn’t caused by us. The only way to cause a person to have a mental shutdown is by killing their shadow.”

“Wait, so killing a shadow causes a person to die?” Morgana thinks back to what happened in the palace. “So that means when I dropped that chandelier, I almost killed Kamoshida?” Morgana droops his ears and puts his paws on his head. “I… I…”

Ryuji starts petting his head. “Hey man, it’s not your fault. You just didn’t know.”

Akira was a bit creeped out now. He’s never seen Ryuji and Morgana so chummy. What could possibly have caused such a huge change in their relationship? Does this mean that if he makes a mistake, he could even make enemies out of a former ally? Akira thought of Ann, Makoto, and Haru with their weapons staring at him sadistically and shuddered.

“Anyways, we just have to be careful not to kill a person’s shadow. But we have to act fast. The deadline for stealing Kamoshida’s treasure is the 15th” Akira tells the group.

“The 15th? Wait, that’s in three days!” Ryuji exclaimed.

“Three days? But we still need to secure the treasure route and send the calling card! We don’t have enough time, why are you in such a rush?” Morgana asked.

“Because in three days, Shiho Suzui will attempt to commit suicide by jumping off the school roof.”

Morgana and Ryuji just look at each other wide-eyed. “What?” They both yell in unison.

“On the 14th, Kamoshida is going to call Ann asking her to come over to his house.”

“What? Takamaki?” Ryuji yelled out.

“Yeah. She’s going to refuse him, and in her place he calls Shiho over to his office instead.” Akira looks away. “From what I heard, it seems Kamoshida… rapes her in his office.” 

Ryuji slams his fist on the table again. “That asshole does what?!”

“That’s not the end of it either. On the 15th during first period, Shiho goes to the school rooftop where she jumps off. Thankfully she survives, but I don’t want her to go through the same thing again. Meanwhile, Kamoshida just laughs in his office saying he’ll get away with because there’s no evidence.”

“Are you for real?!” Ryuji said as he slammed his fist against the table between each word. “We have to stop him!”

“I see, so this explains why you were in such a rush today. If I had known, I wouldn’t have tried to stop you” Morgana said.

Akira shakes his head. “Don’t worry, I know you meant well. But we’ll have to act quickly. Today’s the 12th. Tomorrow on the 13th, we’ll go secure the treasure route. I still have the layout and all the shadows’ weaknesses memorized. We just need to go in, reach the end, then we’ll rush back here afterwards to make the calling card together before posting it at school on the 14th.”

Ryuji looks at him confused. “You two mentioned something about a calling card. What’s the point? Why not just steal it?”

“It’s not that simple. A person’s distorted desires don’t manifest unless they know they’ll be stolen. We need to send a calling card to do so” Morgana explained, losing Ryuji with all his fancy words.

“The treasure is normally just a giant floating gray blob that we can’t touch. It turns into a treasure if we send a calling card” Akira explained, dumbing down the explanation for Ryuji.

“Oh, I see! Man, that sounds just like what a real phantom thief would do!”

“So I take it you’re both okay with the plan?” Akira asked, receiving a nod from both Ryuji and Morgana. “Good, then I guess the Phantom Thieves meeting is over.

“Phantom Thieves? Is that our name? Man, this is so cool! We get to be real phantom thieves!” Ryuji shouted with joy. Thankfully they weren’t in the middle of a sushi restaurant or had a certain student council president snooping around them. Not that it’s a huge deal before the Phantom Thieves have made a name for themselves.

“It’s getting late now. Here, I’ll walk you over to the station.”

“Alright. Thanks, buddy. You coming along as well, Morgana?” Ryuji asked.

“No thanks, I’ll stay behind. I’m getting sleepy” Morgana says before he jumps on the bed.

Akira walked to the station with Ryuji next to him. They arrive at the station and wait for the next train together.

“Hey, Akira. You still didn’t answer my question from earlier.”

Akira looks at Ryuji confused. “Which question?”

Ryuji looks up towards the sky. “The one about me getting a girlfriend.” Akira can feel his face heat up. “So, which is it? Do I get one or not?”

Akira shakes his head. “Sorry, but you don’t get a girlfriend.”

Ryuji throws his head down and sighs. “Yeah, I figured. I guess that means I can expect to not have a girlfriend for the next 8 months at the very least.”

Akira clutches his chest. His heart hurts seeing his best friend and crush like this. He hesitates before continuing. “But there was someone who wanted to confess to you.”

Ryuji looks over at Akira, eyes wide. “For real?!”

Akira nods at him. “Yes. She didn’t get the chance before, well… before I came back in time.”

Ryuji looks up at the sky again, his face filled with excitement. “I see. I guess I have something to look forward to after all! So tell me, is she a cute girl?” Ryuji asked as he nudged Akira.

“Hm… It’s hard to say. I don’t know what your type is.”

“What? We spent 8 whole months together and I never told you what type of girls I like? Man, I am so disappointed in future me!” Ryuji said as he shook his head. “Well, I might as well tell you now, but my type is…” Ryuji paused.

“What’s your type?”

Ryuji scratches his head. “Actually… now that I think about it, I don’t really know myself. I mean I’ve found a lot of girls attractive, but I’ve never really felt any emotional attachment to anyone, you get what I’m saying? Maybe I just need to find someone who I can speak my mind to. Someone who makes me feel free.” Ryuji looks over to Akira and waves his hand in front of his face. “Hello, Akira? You still there, buddy?”

Akira’s face was beet red. Those words, they’re the same that Ryuji told him back at the monjayaki shop! Back then, Akira had yet to develop feelings for Ryuji so he didn’t think too much on them. Could that have been a confession? “Sorry, I just remembered something.”

“What did you remember? Is it some embarrassing secret?” Ryuji nudged Akira with a giant goofy grin on his face.

“No, I just remembered that I left your clothes in the washer.”

Ryuji suddenly looks down and jumps up from his seat. “Ah! I’m still wearing your clothes!”

The train arrives. “Looks like the last train is here. Sorry, I’ll return them to you tomorrow.”

“Okay, but you better not forget! That’s my favorite shirt, okay?” Ryuji told him.

“Don’t you have 6 copies of that shirt though?” Akira said as he laughed.

“Sh-shut up! That’s still my favorite shirt!” Ryuji jumped on the train and waved Akira goodbye. “You better remember to bring that back!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who else thinks it's weird that Morgana and Ryuji are bros to each other now? Because I came up with this idea and I still find it weird


	5. Slumber Party

The next day, Ryuji approached Mishima. He warned him, telling him to watch his face because Kamoshida might try to hit his face. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough. Just as Akira said, Kamoshida aimed a volleyball straight at Mishima’s face and gave him a concussion. After school, the three of them went into the alleyway.

“Dammit, it happened just like you said! And I even warned Mishima, too!” Ryuji said as he punched the wall. He looks down at the ground and kicks a pebble. “Man, changing the future is hard. Have you managed to change anything yet?”

“Yes, a lot of things, actually” Akira responded.

“For real?! Man, you’re a lot better at all this time travel stuff. I guess that’s why you’re the one who got sent back and not me.”

Akira takes out his phone and activates the metanav. The three of them appear back at Kamoshida’s castle.

“Oh yeah, we need to come up with a codename for Ryuji now” Mona said to the group.

“A codename?”

“Shouting our real names in a palace could have unknown consequences. It’s better if we use codenames instead” Mona answered.

“I see. Then what should my name be?” Ryuji asked.

“Skull” Akira told them.

“Skull? Awesome, I like it! From now on, I’m Skull. So what are your codenames?”

“Mona.”

“Joker.”

“Mona and Joker. Got it.”

The trio continued on from the last safe room Mona and Joker reached. Securing the route to the treasure was… interesting to say the least. And by interesting, it meant Joker simply ran by, solving all the puzzles in no time at all while Mona and Skull followed him from behind.

“Man, this is a lot different than I expected. Are palaces normally this boring?” Skull asked.

Joker continues walking ahead, turning his head slightly to talk to Mona and Skull behind him. “Sorry, that’s my fault. We actually had to solve these puzzles at some point, but since I’ve seen everything, we’re just charging through without much effort.”

After just a few hours of walking and fighting shadows, the group reached the treasure room.

“Whoa, so this is what the treasure looks like! I see what you mean by a floating gray blob. How can something like this even exist?” Skull asked as he tried grabbing onto the formless treasure.

“We’ve secured the treasure route. Now we just need to make the calling card” Joker told the group.

Skull’s eyes light up. “Oh, oh! Let me do it! I wanna make the calling card.”

“Sure, Skull. But can you come over to the cafe again? We’re a bit low on time so we should work on it together.”

“Alright! Making an actual calling card. This is awesome!” Skull said as he did a quick fist pump.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Akira and Morgana returned to the cafe while Ryuji went home to get some supplies. Akira put ten thousand yen on the counter and asked for two plates of curry and a coffee and soda, just like yesterday. When Ryuji arrived, he was greeted by a giant plate of curry waiting for him.

“Oh man, more curry? Thanks, buddy!” Ryuji said as he started wolfing down the curry. “By the way, Boss was looking at me funny earlier. Did I do something wrong?”

Akira chuckles before replying. “Well, after you called the cafe a maid cafe, his regulars all started coming in teasing Boss about it asking if he could call them master and make cream art in their coffees.”

Ryuji imagined Boss in a maid costume doing all that and immediately started laughing. “Boss probably looks ridiculous in a maid costume.”

When the two of them finished their curry, they immediately got to work on the calling card.

“Hey Akira, what do you think of this for the logo?” Ryuji asked, holding up the old Phantom Thieves logo he made back during Kamoshida’s palace. The newer logo may be cool, but the old logo also had its charm.

Morgana jumps on the table and chuckles at the logo. “What a lame logo.”

“What was that?!” Ryuji yelled back at Morgana.

“Don’t worry Ryuji, I think it looks cute” Akira says to Ryuji.

“See? At least someone likes it.”

After working on the calling card for a few hours, Ryuji holds up the card and yells out, “Finished! Now we just need to print a bunch of copies and post them all over the school, right?”

“That’s right. And after that, all we’ll need to do is fight Kamoshida’s shadow and steal his treasure” Akira responded.

Ryuji lets out a yawn. “Man, I’m tired. What time is it?” Ryuji takes out his phone from his pocket. “Oh crap, I missed the last train! Dammit, I need to text my mom.”

“Do you want to stay over, Ryuji?” Akira asked.

“Can I? If you’re cool with it I’d love to stay over.”

“Are you fine with that, Morgana?” Akira asked the cat.

“Yeah, I’m fine. The more the merrier, right?”

Akira and Ryuji cleaned up the table and put it away. After getting changed, Ryuji went over to the couch before Akira stopped him. “What are you doing? I can’t let you sleep on the couch, Ryuji.”

“Well where am I supposed to sleep then? I can’t just kick you off your bed.”

“We can just share the bed like we always do.” As Akira said that, he suddenly remembered that he only met this Ryuji two days ago, so it was a bit more awkward to be sharing a bed.

Ryuji looks at Akira, then slowly opens his eyes wider as he realizes what he just suggested. “N-no, it’s fine! I can just sleep on the couch!” He said as he laid down on the couch. It was the most uncomfortable thing Ryuji had ever slept on.

“It’s fine Ryuji, I’ll just face the wall and you can face outside. Besides, I know you can’t fall asleep on the couch. Both of us hated sleeping on that couch.”

Ryuji lets out a sigh, realizing there was no way of getting out of it. “Fine then. Sorry about this, man.”

The two of them get in bed and prepare to sleep. Ryuji looks over and sees Morgana staring at him. “Hey Morgana, aren’t you gonna get on the bed?”

“Huh? Oh, I uh, I’m going to go outside and get some fresh air first. You two go ahead and sleep first” Morgana said as he went downstairs. After a short while, they hear the sound of the bell on LeBlanc’s door chime.

A few minutes pass. Neither Ryuji nor Akira say a word. Unable to sleep, Ryuji speaks up first. “Hey Akira, you still awake?”

“Yeah, I am.”

Ryuji goes silent again before he speaks again. “Hey Akira, would you mind telling me more about yourself?”

Akira turns his head to face the ceiling. “Me? I’m not really sure what to talk about. What brings this up?”

“Well, it’s just… you’ve known me for 8 months, right? You’ve been friends with me for a long time, but I’ve only know you for two days. I hardly know anything about you.”

“I see. Well if you have any questions, feel free to ask. I’ll answer any questions you have as long as it’s not _too_ private.”

Ryuji thinks for a bit before he comes up with a question. “How did you get your criminal record?” Ryuji realizes it probably sounds like a bad question and quickly tries to make it sound better. “I-it’s just, you don’t seem like a bad guy at all! In fact, you’re the exact opposite. You’re nice, smart, charming. Wait, ignore that last one!” Akira lets out a small laugh. “S-stop laughing!”

“Well, you see…” Akira told Ryuji his story. He saved a woman from some drunk politician. Instead of having the politician locked up, the politician scared the woman into testifying against him, which gave Akira one big ol’ criminal record. Once Akira is done explaining his story, he feels Ryuji shaking slightly before he punches the bed violently.

“For real?! You saved a woman, and all you get in return is a criminal record? What kind of messed up shit is that?”

Akira turns around and hugs Ryuji. “It’s alright, Ryuji. I already got revenge on the guy once. We can just change his heart whenever we want.” Akira realizes what he did and turns back to face his wall. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to hug you so suddenly.”

“It’s fine, I really needed it. Sorry for yelling so loud. Oh, and sorry for punching your bed, too.” Ryuji could feel his face burning up. “You said yesterday that I didn’t have a girlfriend. What about you, did you have a girlfriend?”

Akira’s breath hitched. That was the last question he wanted Ryuji to ask. “No, I didn’t.”

“What? But you’re so perfect! Don’t tell me your criminal record got in the way of you dating?”

Akira shakes his head. “No. Well, yes and no. I did date someone back before I got my criminal record, but afterwards she became very distant and just cut off contact altogether. After that, I realized that she must not have really loved me, so in a way I’m almost grateful for my criminal record.”

“Dude, that’s both deep and sad. But I feel terrible knowing you never managed to find a date because of your criminal record.”

“W-well, there was one person I liked…”

This time Ryuji turns his head towards Akira. “For real?! Well, what happened?”

“Um… I… didn’t get the chance to confess. I kinda got sent back in time before I planned to do so.”

“Dude, that sucks! But if it’s you, I’m sure she’ll return your feelings. Hey, maybe if you try hard enough, you can ask her out this time around!”

Akira could feel his heart flutter. “Maybe. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

“So tell me… is she cute? What’s she like?”

“Well, she’s a bit loud. Really sweet. She’s misunderstood. People seem to really hate her for all the wrong reasons. She’s blonde. And yes, she’s really cute.”

Ryuji puts two and two together and comes to a realization. “Oh my god, you like Takamaki, don’t you?!”

“What?” Akira asked.

“Man, I don’t know what you see in her. She’s so crass, and she’s not cute at all. I guess dating a model sounds cool, but I’m sure you could do so much better than her!”

Akira thinks about his description again and realizes that it’s true, everything he said applies to Ann as well. It didn’t help that he lied saying the person was a girl and not a guy. “N-no, I don’t like Ann!”

“Ah, there it is again! You just called her Ann! Dude, don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me. I won’t judge you for liking her. Hell, even I had a crush on her at some point!”

Akira thought about it for a while and then responded. “Alright, you caught me. I wanted to confess to Ann. Are you happy? Now let’s go to bed, we need to get to school before anyone shows up.”

Ryuji was glad he finally learned more about Akira, but something felt… off. Why did he feel a sudden pain in his heart? He’s never felt anything like this before. When the two of them finally fell asleep, Morgana came back out of hiding. “I see, it all makes sense now.” Morgana jumped on the couch, trying making himself comfortable. “Akira likes that Ann girl. That’s why he called her ‘Lady Ann’. And this is just a hunch, but I think maybe Ryuji likes Akira.”

Morgana stretches again before curling himself up again. “Still, Akira wasn’t kidding. This couch is horrible. They better appreciate me for taking the couch in their place!”


	6. A Thief's Calling

A crowd of students were staring at the announcement board. A group calling themselves the Phantom Thieves had posted a calling card saying they were going to steal Kamoshida’s heart. Kamoshida walks past the board and reads the cards as well.

“Who did this?! Was it you? Or was it you?” Kamoshida said menacingly to a couple of students before they quickly walked away. He turns around and sees Ryuji and Akira. “Was it you, Sakamoto?”

Ryuji crosses his arms and leans towards one side. “What do you mean? I didn’t do nothin’”

“Hmph! Watch it, Sakamoto! So be it I can get you expelled from this school!” He yelled as he stormed off.

“Expelled? Man, this better work out. I can’t get expelled and disappoint my mom even more” Ryuji said.

“Don’t worry, it will. We were unsure the first time around as well, but after the first change of heart that uncertainty turned into conviction” Akira said to Ryuji trying to reassure him.

“I believe you, but a part of me is still worried, you know? Sorry, getting expelled is just putting a lot of pressure on me. I need to go calm down, I’ll see you at lunch.”

Hours passed, and soon it was lunch time. Akira went to the courtyard to go buy a soda from the vending machines. Before he turned the corner, he heard someone talking… and sobbing.

“What? But I told you, I wasn’t feeling too good! I can’t go over to your house today, maybe some other day. What? Shiho has nothing to do with this! Wait, we’re not done-” Ann puts down her phone and then covers her face with her hands.

This was almost a repeat of his second meeting with Ann, except it happened a lot earlier in the day. Looks like that calling card really put Kamoshida in a bad mood. Akira started walking over towards Ann.

“Wait, you’re going to talk to her?” Morgana asked.

“Yeah, I can’t just leave her alone. Is something the matter?” Akira asked.

“N-no, nothing’s wrong! I was just thinking Ryuji’s probably waiting for us.” Morgana jumped out of Akira’s bag. “Y-you go ahead and talk to her, I’ll let Ryuji know why you’re late. I’ll make sure not to get caught.”

Akira wondered why Morgana seemed nervous, but shrugged it off thinking it was just him falling in love with Lady Ann all over again. He walks over and sits down in front of Ann.

“Kurusu?” Ann quickly wipes the tears away. “What are you doing here? Don’t you know it’s rude to watch a girl cry?”

“Sorry, it just looked like you needed someone to talk to” Akira told her. “Is it Kamoshida?”

Ann looks down at the table and nods. “He- he told me to go with him to his house after school. You know what that means, right? There’s no way I can go there! But he told me that if I don’t go, he’ll kick Shiho off the team. I can’t let him do that!” Ann burst into tears again.

Akira puts a hand on Ann’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, nothing’s going to happen.”

“Why do you think that? You don’t really believe in that calling card, do you?”

Akira thinks for a moment and then replies with “I do.”

Ann looks at him for a moment before laughing. “I see. It would be nice if someone could just change that bastard Kamoshida’s heart, but something like that sounds ridiculous. There’s no way it could happen.”

Akira looks straight into Ann’s eyes, completely deadpan. “It will happen. Trust me.”

Ann stares back at him before averting her eyes. “I… I still don’t believe it’s real. But hearing you say so with such conviction makes me feel a bit better. Thanks. You know, you’re a lot different from what the rumors say, but I guess I should’ve expected they were just bullshit.” Ann gets up out of her seat. “Anyways, I have to go meet Shiho. I’ll see you in class, Kurusu.”

Before Ann leaves, Akira gets up and grabs her wrist. “Wait!”

Ann turns around and stares straight into his eyes. “W-what?”

“Today, make absolutely sure that Suzui stays away from Kamoshida. It doesn’t matter what he says, whether he threatens to kick her off the team or to expel her, she can’t see Kamoshida today. You got that?”

“Uh, okay. I’ll do that. If it’s Kamoshida, I won’t put it past him to do something worse than expulsion. I’ll make sure Shiho stays as far away from him as possible.”

After Ann waved him goodbye, Akira started heading for the roof. Morgana peeked out from the corner where he was eavesdropping. “I knew it, he really is in love with Ann. I feel bad for Ryuji, looks like Akira won’t love him back. I gotta hurry to the roof, I promised Akira I’d tell Ryuji why he’s late.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Are you guys ready?” Akira asked with his phone out.

“Ready!” Morgana and Ryuji said in unison.

Akira activated the metanav and they were all sent to Kamoshida’s castle. The group ran straight to the throne room, not wasting a second. When they arrived, they were greeted by a giant crown.

“Treasure!” Mona yelled as he jumped up and clung to the giant crown.

“Uh, is Mona okay?” Skull asked.

“Don’t worry, just let him be.”

After a few moments, Mona finally snapped out of his trance. “Sorry, I got a bit carried away. Come on, we have a treasure to steal!”

Skull takes a look at the crown and just tilts his head. “Uh, can we really carry this? It looks a bit  _ too _ big for us.”

“Looks like this will be a bit of a problem. Last time we had Ann with us to carry this, but we probably can’t do this with the two of us.”

“What? Takamaki was in our group? Dude, why didn’t you have her join us this time? You’d have a much better shot with her if she were with us!” Skull shouted.

Joker looks away and puts a hand on the crown. “I didn’t want to involve her. In fact, I didn’t want to involve you either, but here you are anyways. Infiltrating palaces like this is dangerous, so I wanted to do this with just me and Mona.”

There is a brief pause before Skull walks over to Joker and punches his shoulder.

“Ow, what was that for?!” Joker shouted.

Skull grabs Joker and pulls his face in close to his own. “Your attitude’s the problem! You don’t want me to get hurt so you want to keep me away? Bullshit! I’m supposed to be your best friend, right? I can’t just let you do all this by yourself! And what about Mona? These shadow things look pretty strong, won’t it be dangerous for both of you if you went at it alone?” Joker stares into Skull’s eyes, stunned by what he just said. Realizing how close their faces were, Skull lets Joker go. “Sorry, but the way you said that makes me feel like you don’t trust me. I shouldn’t have said all that.”

Joker shakes his head. “No, you’re right. I was so obsessed with the idea of saving our friends that I put all the burden on not only myself, but Mona as well. I guess I failed as a leader” Akira said as he went over to pet Mona’s head.

“Still, how are we going to get this out? This crown is too big for the two of us to carry, and Mona can’t exactly reach” Skull said as he tried to lift the whole thing by himself.

“Don’t worry, there’s an easy way to do this.”

Skull looks at Joker. “How?”

“Like this.” Joker lifts the crown up and knocks it over on its side. He then starts rolling it out of the room.

“Whoa, nice, dude! This is a lot easier than carrying this stupid thing!”

The three of them walked out of the treasure room and were greeted by Shadow Kamoshida who stole the crown back from them.

“Kamoshida!” Skull yelled out.

“Well well, I must congratulate you three for coming this far. Unfortunately for you, this is the end.” Kamoshida put on his crown and started transforming.

“Uh, Joker, what do we do?” Skull asked as he watched Kamoshida growing bigger and bigger.

Mona and Joker on the other hand got ready for battle. “We fight, that’s what!” Mona shouted.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ann and Shiho are in the hallways talking when Mishima shows up.

“There you are, Suzui. Kamoshida’s looking for you.” Mishima was clutching his arm. It looked like Kamoshida struck again.

“I see. Sorry Ann, I have to go” Shiho said as she started walking towards Kamoshida’s office.

Ann quickly grabs Shiho’s arm. “Wait, don’t go!”

Shiho shakes her head. “I can’t, Ann. If I don’t go, then Kamoshida might kick me off the team. I’m nothing without the volleyball team.”

Ann grabs onto Shiho’s shoulders and starts shaking her. “No you’re not, Shiho! You’re worth more than some stupid volleyball position! Kamoshida was really mad today, there’s no knowing what he’ll do if you go there! The worst he can do if you don’t show up is kick you off the team. But if you do go, then he could do so much worse than that!” Ann starts crying. “Please, Shiho…”

“Ann…” Shiho hugs Ann and starts petting her head. “Thank you, Ann, but I have to go.”

“Wait, Shiho!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Skull dodged the giant fork that Kamoshida threw at him before he had Captain Kidd lunge him.

“Skull, Mona, aim for the cup instead! Those creepy leg things heal him when he eats them!”

“What? Gross! But you got it, leader!” Skull shouted before launching a Zio at the cup.

“How dare you attack my trophy! I will have you all executed!” Kamoshida shouted.

“Skull, watch out!” Mona shouted before Kamoshida landed a Golden Knife at him. “Skull! Hold on!” Mona sent a quick Dia his way.

“Thanks, buddy!” Skull shouted back at him.

The fight was going too well. Joker had to admit, when Skull and Mona weren’t constantly putting each other down, they made one strong duo. After destroying the cup, it was time to take down the mastermind himself. Joker sent a Rakunda straight at Kamoshida.

“Mona, we’re going to steal the crown! Can you do it?”

“You got it!” Mona ran towards the pillar and hid behind it.

“Skull, Mona won’t be able to heal us for a while, so be very careful! We need to keep attacking to distract Kamoshida, but put priority on dodging his attacks!”

“Alright, I’ll be careful!”

After a few long minutes of dodging attacks and hitting Kamoshida with their strongest attacks, Mona finally found the chance to steal the crown.

Joker launches another Rakunda Kamoshida’s way. “Now! Take him down!”

The three of them throw their strongest skills at Kamoshida and take him down easily now that his crown was knocked off. In almost no time at all, they take down Kamoshida’s shadow.

“We did it!” Skull shouted as he gave Joker and Mona a high five. Skull walked over to where the crown was, but before he could pick it up, Kamoshida ran over and grabbed it himself.

“S-stay away! This is my crown, my castle! You can’t take it away from me!”

Joker looks over at Skull and sees the anger in his eyes. This was the moment when Panther shot an Agi right next to Kamoshida to scare him. How was Skull going to handle it?

Skull starts walking over to Kamoshida.

“No, don’t kill me!”

As Kamoshida cowered in fear, Skull grabbed him by his cape and knocked his head straight into Kamoshida’s head. “We’re not here to kill you, we’re just here to steal your heart. Now give us the treasure and go confess everything you did.”

“Y-yes, I’ll go confess my crimes. I’m a changed man now. Here!” Kamoshida threw the crown at Skull before disappearing. Suddenly the ground starts shaking.

“Whoa, what’s going on?” Skull asked.

Joker runs over to Skull and grabs his wrist. “Hurry, we have to leave now!”

“Wait, what are you- whoa!” Skull started running as Joker grabbed his wrist tightly. He was really glad he still had his skull mask on because his face was red with embarrassment.

Both of them were panting like crazy when they appeared back in the real world.

“Man, that was close. Is this what normally happens when we take down a palace?” Ryuji asked.

“Yeah, so make sure you’re prepared to run as soon as we take down the shadow. And be careful of your leg, you’ve tripped at least once when we did this before.

“I see. I guess that’s a sign I should go train again. I can’t really move as well as I used to.” Ryuji said as he kicked his leg at the ground. “By the way, where’s the treasure?”

Akira takes out an olympic medal. “An olympic medal? What happened to the crown?” Ryuji asked.

“This is the crown. The treasure transforms as soon as we leave into something that actually exists” Akira explained.

“Wait, does that mean we stole Kamoshida’s olympic medal? Isn’t that bad?”

Morgana jumps onto a trash can to get some height. “No, this treasure isn’t real. It’s a fake, but a fake that looks real in every way. It represents the root of a person’s distortion.”

“I see. Still, I wonder how much an olympic medal sells for” Ryuji wondered.

“Thirty thousand yen” Akira flatly told him.

“T-thirty t-t-t-thousand yen?!” Ryuji just stares at the medal, unable to believe the little trinket in Akira’s hand was really worth so much money.

Akira nodded. “Last time when we defeated Kamoshida, the three of us and Ann went together to the Wilton Buffet to celebrate. If you want, we can go there to celebrate our victory.”

Ryuji just continues to stare at the medal, his jaw slack.

“That sounds like a great idea!” Morgana chimed in. “I hope they have sushi there!”

“Nope, no sushi unfortunately. But they do have plenty of cooked salmon” said Akira.

“Ohhh, cooked fish is good, too! When can we go?”

“How about this weekend? We can go after school on Saturday.”

Akira and Morgana just look at Ryuji who’s still staring at the medal. “I’ll take that as a yes” Akira said as he grabbed Ryuji’s wrist and walked to the station with him.


	7. Misdirection

The next day at school, Mr. Ushimura was teaching class as usual. Akira just stared off into space, having no need to pay attention to class. After staring out the window for so long, Mr. Ushimura threw a piece of chalk straight at Akira, who simply put up his hand and grabbed it in midair.

The whole class started gossipping about how cool that was. While everyone else is gossipping, he notices Ann just staring at her desk, not moving an inch. “Hey Takamaki, is something wrong?”

“Huh? Oh, it’s nothing…” Ann said as she turned around. She pauses for a moment then continues. “Actually, there is something.”

“Don’t tell me it’s about Shiho” Akira was worried that she couldn’t convince Shiho.

“Huh? Uh, no, actually Shiho’s fine. It’s actually about Mishima.”

Mishima? Mishima was absent today which was strange, but Akira didn’t think too much about it.

“Hey, is that guy going to jump?”

“Oh my god, he’s totally going to do it!”

Akira gets up out of his desk and rushes over to the window. Sure enough, Mishima is standing on the rooftop.

“Settle down, class! All of you back to your seats!” Mr. Ushimura yelled as he waved his arms around.

Everyone watches as Mishima spreads out his arms and dives down, landing lifelessly on the ground.

“Mishima!” Akira yelled out. He runs over to the stairs and bumps into Ryuji.

“Dude, did you see that? I thought you said Shiho was supposed to jump, why was Mishima there instead?”

“I- I don’t know! This wasn’t supposed to happen!” Akira yelled as he ran down the stairs. He didn’t even bother going the normal route and ran straight towards the opposite building the same he did before.

Akira ran into the group of students and saw Mishima put on a stretcher, just as Shiho was in the previous timeline. Akira started walking slowly towards Mishima until Kamoshida walked past him.

Kamoshida walked over to where Mishima and dropped to his knees. “No, Mishima… What have I done?” Kamoshida broke down into tears as he saw Mishima being carried away.

“Are you this student’s teacher? Would you mind accompanying him to the hospital?” the paramedic asked.

Kamoshida just continued crying and shook his head. “No, I don’t deserve to be called a teacher.” Kamoshida stood up and walked away.

As Ryuji saw Kamoshida walk away, he chased after him, with Akira following behind as well.

“Wait up!” Ryuji yelled out. Hearing Ryuji’s voice, Kamoshida turned around, letting Ryuji grab him by the shirt. “What the hell did you do?! Because of you, Mishima just tried to kill himself! Are you happy?!” Ryuji started panting from anger, but his breathing returned to normal when he saw tears streaming down Kamoshida’s face.

“No, I understand my actions were wrong, that’s why I’m going to confess in front of the whole school.” Ryuji lets go of Kamoshida, unable to process what’s going on. Kamoshida drops down to one knee and grabs Ryuji’s shoulders before staring him straight in the eyes. “I know I’ve done a lot of terrible things to you in the past, Sakamoto. I’ll make sure everyone knows about them. Same with Takamaki. Words can’t describe how sorry I am to the both of you.” Kamoshida put his head to the ground and started crying again, gathering the attention of some students in the halls.

“H-hey, uh, stop crying. You’re causing a scene” Ryuji said to Kamoshida.

Kamoshida got up from the ground. “You’re right, I need to go atone for my sins. I’m sorry, Sakamoto, for all the troubles I caused.” Kamoshida started walking away again, heading up the stairs to who-knows-where.

Ryuji turns to face Akira. “Uh, dude, that was Kamoshida right? He seemed like a completely different person.”

Akira nods. “Yeah, that’s what happens when someone evil like Kamoshida gets a change of heart. They turn into a decent human being, feel the weight of their sins, and feel the need to confess their crimes.” Akira thinks for a bit. He isn’t sure if he should mention that those who get a change of heart also lose their freedom and become a slave of the Holy Grail. Probably not.

“Alright kids, get back to class!” A teacher started shooing students away. Everyone returned to their classrooms, resuming class as usual. However, that didn’t last for long…

In the middle of third period, the intercom was suddenly turned on, and on the other side was none other than Kamoshida’s voice.

“Ahem, testing, testing, is this thing working? Good. I… have an announcement to make.”

The students all started gossipping. An announcement from Kamoshida? What could it possibly be?

“I… have committed a great sin. Many sins, in fact. Yesterday after I saw the calling cards posted all over the school, I was consumed by anger. Everything on the card was true. I have been physically abusing the volleyball team members, I sexually harassed female students, I even tried to force myself on Takamaki against her will.”

The students in the class all looked at Ann who just looked back at Akira, surprised at what Kamoshida was saying.

“That’s not the end of it either. In order to fuel my… selfish desires, I looked into the private life of Sakamoto and manipulated him in attacking me. I broke his leg and passed it off as self-defense, then forcefully disbanded the track team. I even had the track team’s former coach fired when he threatened to report me.”

This was new to Akira. Kamoshida never admitted to anything he did to Ryuji before.

“That’s not the worst of it, either. I am the reason Mishima tried to commit suicide earlier today. When Takamaki refused to go to my house, and Suzui was nowhere to be found, I took my frustrations on Mishima. Both physically” Kamoshida gulped loudly. “And sexually.”

So because Shiho didn’t go to Kamoshida’s office like she normally did, Kamoshida ended up abusing Mishima instead? The whole school was in an uproar now.

“Mr. Kamoshida, what are you doing?! Turn that off right now!” It was the voice of the principal.

“Someone, please call the police! I must atone for all of my sins!”

The broadcast was cut off, and a few students took out their phones and started dialing 110. Within a matter of minutes, the police arrived and arrested Kamoshida. This was the beginning of the biggest scandal in Shujin Academy’s history.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When lunch started, Ryuji ran over to Akira’s classroom.

“Akira!” Ryuji yelled out before stopping in his tracks when he saw Ann approach Akira. He quickly hid behind the door and listened in on their conversation.

“You were right, Kurusu. Kamoshida called Shiho over to his office, just like you said.” Ann grabbed her arm with her other hand.

“What happened?” Akira asked.

Ann sighed, having a hard time bringing herself to explain what happened. “Shiho didn’t listen to me at first, but while she was walking over to Kamoshida’s office, her mom called telling her to go home because her dad suddenly tripped and hurt his back. She hesitated because of Kamoshida, but Mishima overheard the conversation and told her to go and that he’ll tell Kamoshida for her.” Ann looks back at Akira. “Looks like Mishima saved Shiho, but now he’s in the hospital.”

Ann covers her face with her hands and starts crying. “I’m thankful for Mishima, but I feel so bad. He saved Shiho, and now he’s stuck in the hospital! We don’t even know if he’s going to live or not!”

Seeing Ann crying, Akira gets up and gives her a hug, patting her back to calm her down. Ryuji watched as Akira comforted Ann. He was feeling conflicted. On one hand, he was happy for Akira. He’s finally getting some progress with the girl he liked. On the other hand, he also felt a surge of jealousy. He wasn’t jealous of Akira though, but of Ann. Ryuji clutched his chest, wondering what all these emotions meant. Ryuji continues to watch, but then he sees Morgana staring at him and quickly heads upstairs towards the roof.

Ann wipes the rest of the tears from her eyes. “Thanks, Akira. I really needed that.” Ann realizes that he just called Akira by his first name and quickly retracts it. “Ah! Sorry, I meant Kurusu!”

“Akira’s fine. Do you mind if I call you Ann?”

“Huh? Uh, sure. Ann’s fine. Anyways, I just wanted to confirm one other thing with you.” Ann looked around to make sure no one was watching and whispered in Akira’s ear. “You’re the phantom thief, right? The one who posted the calling card?”

Akira nods his head. “Yes, that’s me. Your neighborhood phantom thief, here to steal the hearts of corrupt adults.” Akira said as he took a bow.

Ann chuckles at Akira’s gesture. “Wow, I still can’t believe all of this is real. But there’s no way Kamoshida would just go from his normal, asshole self to suddenly confessing his sins to the entire school in just a single day otherwise.” Ann looks at Akira and smiles at him. “Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me. I won’t tell anyone.”

Ann starts walking away. “Just so you know, I also work as a model in a fashion magazine. If you ever get famous, I’ll be sure to support you in magazine interviews and whatnot. When Kamoshida confessed, it gave me a lot of courage. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my chest. I’m sure that if you keep stealing the hearts of guys like Kamoshida, you’ll keep giving courage to people like Shiho, me, Ryuji, and all the other victims of Kamoshida.”

Ann waves goodbye to Akira and goes to eat lunch with Shiho. Akira gets up from his seat and puts Morgana in his bag before heading upstairs to the roof where Ryuji was awaiting him.

When Akira opened the door leading to the roof, he sees Ryuji sitting in his usual seat staring up at the sky.

“Hey Ryuji, something on your mind?” Akira asked.

“Huh? Uh, it’s nothing. Just thinking about what happened earlier today.” Truth was, Ryuji was thinking about Akira. No girl ever made him feel the way Akira does. What does that mean?

Akira lets Morgana out and puts his bag on the ground. He walks over to the fence and sticks his fingers through the links. “I understand. It must have been a huge shock to you. I told you everything would be fine and that we would save Suzui, but instead I messed up and caused Mishima to jump instead.” Akira strengthens his grip.

“No dude, it’s not your fault! I couldn’t even stop Mishima from getting hit in the face by a volleyball. You can’t expect everything to go exactly as you planned!” Ryuji said to Akira, trying to make him feel better.

Ryuji sees Akira shaking and walks over over to him. “Hey, Akira. You okay?” Ryuji said as he stuck his hand out to turn him around. Akira feels Ryuji’s hand on his shoulder and moves it away.

“Sorry Ryuji, but can you- please leave me alone for a moment?” Akira said, trying his best not to cry.

“Akir-”

“Please!” Akira yelled out, startling Ryuji. “I beg you…”

Ryuji ignores what Akira said and walks closer to him, hugging him with one arm while petting his head with the other. “Idiot. If you need to cry, then cry. No need to keep it all to yourself.”

Akira turns around, tears streaming down his face. “Ryuji…” Akira plants his face into Ryuji’s chest and they both drop to the ground. Akira just continues to cry, cursing himself for being too weak to help Mishima. Ryuji sits there petting his head, feeling sadness in his heart as Akira just kept crying his eyes out. Lunchtime passed and 5th period started. Both of them were late to class, but that wasn’t important.

When Akira finally stopped crying, he looked at Ryuji’s shirt. “I’m sorry, I got your shirt wet.”

“It’s fine, not like I can’t wear it or anything.”

“People are going to spread more rumors about you.”

“So let them. I’m used to it” Ryuji said as he smiled at Akira.

Akira smiles back as Ryuji reminded him why he fell in love with him in the first place. “Come on, let’s get back to class” Akira said as he walked over to grab his bag.

“Yeah, sure buddy.”


	8. A Phantastic Meal

“Oh man, the food here is amazing!” Ryuji said as he stuffed his face full of meat.

Akira just continued to stare at his plate, not even reacting. It had been a week since Kamoshida confessed, but Akira couldn’t shake the events out of his head. He managed to save Shiho, but Mishima tried to kill himself instead.

“Still thinking about what happened to Mishima?” Ryuji asked.

“Yeah. I went to the hospital the other day, but they wouldn’t let me see him. They said he’s still in critical condition.”

“Come on man, I know you feel bad about Mishima and all, but it’s not your fault. If it wasn’t for you, it’d be Shiho there instead!”

Akira just looks back down at his plate. “I talked to the doctors and they said that Mishima was unlikely to recover. It also doesn’t help that he got a concussion two days prior.”

Akira suddenly feels a fork forced into his mouth. He stares at Ryuji who just stuffed a piece of steak in his mouth. “Don’t be so down and enjoy the food, man. I’m sure Mishima will be fine. Plus, it’s not everyday you get to come to a fancy buffet!”

Akira finishes chewing and swallows the piece of steak. “Yeah, you’re right. Let’s just enjoy the food.” Akira looks down at his plate of food and realizes something. “Wait, did you pick out all of this?”

“Huh? Uh, yeah. Is it no good?”

“No, that’s not it.” When he went to the buffet with Ann and Ryuji, they gave him a giant plate of the most random combination of beans and other things all piled together in a giant mess. This time, Ryuji gave him an actual plate of food! There was meat, fish, and rice. It was mostly meat though, and they were all mixing together a bit, but it was far better than what he had gotten before. 

“I wasn’t sure what to get you, so I a bunch of stuff I liked. Of course, can’t have meat without any rice. And I got a bit of fish as well just in case you were more of a seafood kinda guy.”

Akira could feel his heart flutter. Ryuji’s a nice guy, but he wasn’t exactly the most thoughtful. The last time he put much thought into anything was when he took care of him after he came back from the interrogation room.

“Hey, there’s still a lot of stuff we haven’t tried yet. How about let’s see who can eat the most. What do you say?” Ryuji said, confident his stomach can’t be beat.

Akira continues staring at his plate before he looks back at Ryuji. “Oh, you’re on!”

After about 30 minutes, both of them felt like throwing up. Akira may have been able to eat a 20 pound burger, but his stomach capacity didn’t exactly travel back in time with him.

“Ugh, looks like a tie. You sure can eat, man” Ryuji said while trying his best not to barf.

“Here, I’ll take you to the restroom Ryuji, you’ll feel better after throwing up.”

“N-no way... I won’t… throw up…”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The two of them walk out of the restroom, Ryuji looking defeated. “Man, I can’t believe I seriously threw up. Guess it counts as your win then.”

After Ryuji clicked the elevator button to return to the buffet, a familiar bald head and his guards showed up. Seriously, do these people eat here everyday or something?

“Hey, we were here first!” Ryuji shouted after Shido’s guard shoved him out of the way. As the guard approached Ryuji again, Akira quickly got in between them, glaring at the guard.

“Enough, we don’t have time to be dealing with children” Shido said as his little posse got on the elevator and disappeared.

When the two of them finally returned to their table, Ryuji was fuming. “Dammit, what the hell was that guy’s problem?”

“Just let it go, Ryuji. We have better things to worry about.”

Morgana pokes his head out from Akira’s bag. “Did something happen while you two were gone?”

“Yeah, some self-important asshole pushed us out of the way just to get on the elevator first!” Ryuji thinks for a bit before asking something. “Hey, we can change the hearts of anyone, right?”

“Only if they have a palace” Akira responded.

“Or if we can find their shadow in Mementos” Morgana continued.

“Mementos? Well, whatever. This means we can change the hearts of corrupt adults like that guy, right?”

Akira nods. “Yeah, that’s actually what we’ve been doing for over 8 months.”

“Whoa, for real?! We spent 8 whole months changing people’s hearts? Aw man, that’s awesome! Dude, does that mean we get to eat like king’s every time we change a person’s heart?”

“Unfortunately not. Out of the 7 palaces we do, only 3 of them gave us anything that could be sold.”

Ryuji hangs his head. “For real? Man, that’s a disappointment. But still, saving people by changing the hearts of bastards like Kamoshida sounds amazing. It’s like we could be superheroes!” Ryuji perks up imagining people surrounding him asking for his autograph. “So who’s our next target supposed to be?”

“Our next target is… wait, what was his name again? Nakanohara… something…” Akira tries to rack his brain for Nakanohara’s name, but he completely draws a blank. He can still remember the names of all the Mementos targets he got from his close confidants, but he couldn’t remember the names of people who he had absolutely no relationship to.

“Come on, man? You can’t even remember 7 names?” Ryuji asked disappointed.

Akira shakes his head. “No, that’s not it. I was hoping we could go to Mementos to show you a smaller change of heart, but I can’t remember the names of people who are in the areas we can access.”

“Well then, how did we get the guy’s name the first time around?”

“We got the name from the Phan...site…” Akira goes quiet, remembering how Mishima was still in a coma.

“Phansite? What’s that?”

“...It’s a forum for people to talk about the Phantom Thieves.”

“For real?! We have our own forum as well? That’s so cool! Hold on, let me look it up.” Ryuji takes out his phone and starts searching for the Phansite.

“Unfortunately, that’s not possible.”

“What? Why not?”

Akira looks down at the table. “Because Mishima’s the one who originally created the Phansite.”

A heavy silence fills the air. “I’m sorry, man. Looks like Mishima was a really great guy.” Ryuji lets out a sigh. “But I guess this means we won’t have a cool forum. I wish I could help, but I’m no good with fancy computer stuff. If only we knew someone who did.”

Akira realizes what Ryuji just said and has an epiphany. “Ryuji, that’s it! You’re a genius!”

“Huh? Uh, thanks. What did I do?”

“Ryuji, Morgana, after school we’re having a Phantom Thieves meeting in LeBlanc. There shouldn’t be too many customers tomorrow. Oh and Ryuji, make sure to come on an empty stomach. We might need to eat a few plates of curry.”

“Uh sure, that’s fine.” Ryuji just looks at Akira and at Morgana, confused at what Akira has planned.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After school the next day, Akira and Ryuji arrive outside LeBlanc.

“Here’s the plan, Ryuji. We’re going to order some curry and eat in one of the booths. Eat slowly though, we want to wait for the moment there are no other customers and Boss goes outside for a smoke break, and if it takes too long, we may need to eat through a few plates.”

“I have no idea what you have planned, but if it involves eating then count me in!” Ryuji said as he gave Akira a thumbs up.

As soon as Akira and Ryuji enter, Sojiro looks up at them. “Oh, you’re back. And I see your friend is here as well. Just make sure you two keep it down up there, okay?” Sojiro said as he continued reading the newspaper.

“Actually, we’re here as customers today. Can we get the usual?” Akira asked.

“Huh? Customers? Uh, sure. That’s two plates of curry, a coffee, and a soda, right?” Sojiro just scratched his head wondering what Akira was thinking.

Once the two of them got seated, they started talking about various things: movies, manga, video games. Ryuji asked for spoilers on the manga he was reading, but Akira just teased him saying he’ll love the next few chapters.

The opportunity didn’t come as soon as Akira predicted. The two of them stayed for the entire afternoon, going through 4 large plates of curry before all the customers left and Sojiro left for a smoke break.

“Ugh… no… more… curry…” Ryuji groaned, feeling the same he did at the buffet yesterday.

“Don’t worry, Boss is gone now. We only have a few minutes though, so let’s get this meeting started.”

“So what’s the plan, Joker? Who’s our next target going to be?” Morgana asked.

“Our next target is Futaba Sakura” Akira told the group.

“Futaba Sakura? Who is she? Some sort of evil politician? Or maybe a business tycoon abusing her workers?” Ryuji asked.

Akira just shakes his head. “No, she’s a hacker going by the alias Alibaba, and she’s not evil. In fact, she used to be the leader of that hacker group Medjed before they strayed down the path of evil.”

Ryuji just looks at Akira confused. “What? So why are we changing her heart if she’s not evil?”

“Futaba may not be evil, but she also has distorted desires. She thinks that she killed her own mom.”

Ryuji stares wide-eyed at Akira. “What? Why does she think that?”

“It’s a long story and I don’t have time to explain, but I want to make a deal with Futaba. If we help change her heart so that she can see the truth of her mom’s death, we might be able to get a new and improved Phansite.”

“Really? Aw man, that sounds awesome! So how are we going to meet her?” Ryuji asked.

“Right here, actually. Futaba has the cafe bugged, so she’s most likely listening in on our conversation right now.”

“What? You mean you just told our target all of our plans? Who knows what kind of effect that will have on her palace!” Morgana yelled out.

“Don’t worry about it, we’ve done this before. Alibaba, you’re listening in on us right now, correct? Please contact me. Here’s my chat ID.” Akira said his chat ID out loud and immediately afterwards he got a message from an unknown number.

**Unknown:** “Is it really true? You can show me the truth about my mom’s death?”

“Whoa, it actually worked!” Ryuji said as he watched Akira texting Alibaba.

“That’s correct, Alibaba. Futaba Sakura did not kill her mom, and we will show her the truth of what happened. In exchange, I’d like for you to lend us your hacking skills.”

**Unknown:** “Let me think about it.”

A few moments pass before they receive another response.

**Unknown:** “Okay, I accept. But under the condition that I can choose not to help if I deem your actions unjust.”

“You got it, Alibaba. We won’t force you to do anything that you deem morally wrong.” Akira was relieved. A part of him was worried that he might screw things up, but the deal worked out fine so far.

“Alright, looks like the Phantom Thieves have their second target!” Ryuji shouted. “So what’s Futaba’s keywords?”

Akira takes out his phone and activates the metanav. “Futaba Sakura. Sojiro Sakura’s house. Tomb.”


	9. Fun In The Desert

The next day, the trio headed over to Sojiro’s house after school. Their goal: to steal Futaba Sakura’s heart and make her see the truth behind her mom’s death. After Akira activated the Metanav, they appeared in front of a pyramid, except Ryuji and Akira were still in their school uniforms.

“Wait, why aren’t we in our phantom thief outfits?” Ryuji asked.

“It’s because this Futaba girl doesn’t see us as a threat.” Morgana lets out a sigh. “This is why we can’t let our targets know we’re going to steal their heart.”

“Don’t worry, Futaba originally asked us for help and we ended up here without our costumes as well. Her shadow should see us as a threat when we meet her.” Akira starts heading up the pyramid. “Best case scenario, we could even just send the calling card tomorrow and steal her treasure without fighting.”

Ryuji and Morgana just look at each other, wondering what Akira had in mind before following him. As they headed up the hallway to the elevator, they get greeted by Futaba’s shadow.

“Is this that Futaba girl?” Ryuji asked.

Akira approaches Futaba’s shadow. “Futaba, we are here to steal your treasure. Will you let us through or will we have to force our way through?”

Futaba’s shadow looks at the group. “Try as you might, you cannot steal my treasure while my palace is in its current state.” Of course they’d have to do this the hard way. Akira was hoping they could just send the calling card and walk straight up to the elevator. Good thing he didn’t take that risk. Futaba’s shadow starts clutching her head and voices can be heard resonating throughout the palace.

“Ryuji, Morgana, start running back down, now!” Akira yelled out.

“What? Why’s that?” Ryuji asked before his phantom thief suit suddenly appeared. “Whoa, what the!” The ground starts shaking and a giant ball starts rolling down the stairs. “Okay, back down the stairs it is!”

The trio starts running down the stairs, trying to outrun the giant ball trying to crush them. As they’re running down, Skull’s leg gives out, causing him to trip.

“Ryuji!” Joker yelled out, forgetting to use codenames.

Mona sees Joker running towards Skull and calls out to him. “Joker, wait!” Mona shoves Joker towards the wall. The ball passes by them, with the doors slamming shut.

“Let me go!” Joker shouted as he quickly got up and started slamming his hands against the giant barricades. “Ryuji! Can you hear me?!”

There is a moment of silence before he hears a voice. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just barely rolled out of the way in time.”

Joker lets out a sigh of relief. One day that idiot was going to give him a heart attack. “Skull, the room to your right should be a safe room. Just stay in there, we’re coming to get you.” Joker turns to face Mona. “Mona, we need to head into the town in the distance. Can you take us there?”

“You got it, Joker.”

The two of them leave the pyramid, heading to the platform facing the town. “Hey Joker, watch this!” Mona said as he transformed into a bus. “Tada! Surprised? Although I guess you’ve probably seen this form before, haven’t you?”

Joker just lets out a smirk and plays along. “Amazing, you can turn into a bus? I never would have guessed!”

Joker gets in and drives the Monabus to town. After getting off, he gives Mona some instructions. “Mona, stay here in this alleyway and make sure to keep an eye out for a bandit. He should appear as soon as I walk into that plaza, I want you to sneak up behind him and rip off his mask.”

“A bandit, huh? I’m not sure what exactly we’re doing, but I’ll make sure to get him!”

Joker walks into the plaza, and just as before the same bandit who stole Futaba’s map showed up. Joker tried to keep the bandit busy, and while the bandit wasn’t paying attention, Mona jumped up and ripped his mask off.

The two of them fought the Garuda, taking every turn shooting a single bullet each and going in for an All-Out Attack. After the fight, both of them were panting from the long, drawn-out battle. “Ngh! We exploited its weakness and it was still a difficult opponent. This must be a palace of exceptional difficulty.”

“Yeah, which is why I’m worried about Skull. Knowing him, he might get bored and decide to look for a way out on his own. If he encounters any shadows on his own, it’s over.” Joker starts walking back to the town’s entrance before he gets stopped by Mona.

“Hey Joker, there’s something I’ve been wondering.”

“Hm? What is it?”

Mona looks away wondering if it was really a good time to ask. “What do you think about that Ann girl?”

“Ann?” Could it be that Mona fell in love all over again with Ann? “She’s a great friend. Strong, dependable, trustworthy.”

“I see. What about Ryuji?”

Joker looks surprised and then scratches his cheek. “Let’s see… He’s loud. He’s an idiot. He can act like such a child at times.”

Mona droops his ears. It was true, Ryuji had a lot of flaws.

Joker continues his list. “He’s also kind. He’s loyal. He was the first one to be my friend after I got my criminal record. He took care of me after I came back from the interrogation room. He saved our lives when we escaped Shido’s palace…” Mona looks up at Joker who now has tears in his eyes. “He also just sat there at that lamppost with that same stupid smile. He saved our lives, and all we did was beat him up. He didn’t even complain at all. And then just as we were about to destroy Mementos-” Joker suddenly stops, realizing what he just said.

“Destroy Mementos? Wait, so we’ve gone as far as the depths of Mementos?” Mona lets out a gasp. “Then does that mean I regain my true form?” Mona looks at Joker, smiling with anticipation.

“Y-yeah, that’s right! Man, we couldn’t even believe it was really you!”

“Really? Oh man, I can’t believe it! See, I told you guys I was a human all along! Oh right, we should go rescue Skull.” Mona starts happily skipping back to the entrance. “Aren’t you coming, Joker?”

“Y-yeah, I’m coming.” Joker felt a pang of guilt. He didn’t have the heart to tell Mona the truth, but he couldn’t just avoid answering. What’s going to happen when he has to tell Mona that he was just a shadow created in the depths of Mementos?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
“Man, this sucks. They’ve been gone for hours, where are they?!” Skull complained, tired of waiting. He starts pacing around the room, completely bored out of his wits. “Maybe it’ll be faster if I go search for them as well.”

Skull gets up and exits the safe room. He walks up to the giant barricade. “Hmm… I wonder if there’s some sort of trick to opening this.” Skull starts knocking on the barricade, and suddenly it opens up. “Whoa, did I do that?”

“Skull!” Skull looks over and sees Joker jumping down from the area above the pyramid’s entrance and starts running towards him.

“Yo, Joker! I was tired of wait- Oomf!” Joker ran directly into Skull and tackled him on the ground. “Hey, what was that-”

Joker hugs Skull tightly. “That’s the fifth time you almost died now! How do you think I feel every time you do this?”

“S-sorry. Can you- get off me now? It’s- hard to- breathe.” Skull said as he tried to gasp for breath.

Joker lets go of Skull and quickly gets up. He lets out a cough and tries to pretend nothing happened just now.

“By the way, where’s Mona?” Skull asked.

“Right… here…” Mona says as he crawls his way up the stairs.

“Dude, Mona, what happened?” Skull asked as he picked up his friend.

“It was horrible, everything here is weak to wind! Joker practically worked me to death, saying ‘We have to save Skull! We have to save Skull!’ I’m so low on energy I can barely even move my tail anymore!”

Skull felt his face start to blush. Joker was that worried about him? He was glad his mask covered most of his face unlike Joker’s.

Joker walks over and starts petting Mona. “Sorry, Mona. You did great though, thanks for all your help. Now get some rest, we can come back tomorrow.”

The three of them returned to the real world with Ryuji carrying Morgana in his arms as they walked over to LeBlanc. Looks like Futaba’s palace wasn’t going to go as smoothly as Kamoshida’s afterall.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I see- why Mona- was so tired- yesterday” Skull said as he was panting. “You two seriously fought all these shadows by yourselves? Why is everything so strong?”

Joker shrugs. “Not sure. This was originally our 4th palace. I guess it was pure coincidence that each palace we went to just got harder and harder.”

“You mean you just skipped two whole dungeons out of nowhere? Dude, you can’t just skip two dungeons like that, that’s not how it works in games!” Skull complained.

“Hey, at least you two can get away with just melee attacks. I have to keep up with healing you two _and_ casting wind spells! Do you know how hard it is hard it is keeping up with your injuries when you two keep using Swift Strike and Rampage on everything?” Mona yelled at the two, find it harder and harder to keep up after using so much SP.

“Come on, Mona, you’re doing great. Here, have some coffee” Joker said as he gave Mona a cup of coffee he made.

Mona forces down the coffee and then sticks his tongue out. “Bleh! I don’t get how you can stand this stuff. But thanks, I feel a lot better now.”

As the thieves moved on, they eventually reached the first puzzle.

“Oh, is that a puzzle? Let me try it!” Skull said as he took control of the panel. It took a bit of time, but Skull managed to reassemble the picture on the screen. The sound of some adults talking started playing from the device. It was of the guys reading the fake will from Futaba’s mom.

When the voices stopped, Skull just stared at the device. “Did Futaba’s mom really hate her that much?”

“No, the will was a fake.”

“What? Why were they reading a fake will?”

“It’s because Futaba’s mom was the lead researcher into cognitive psience. She was investigating the metaverse, but then some selfish adults wanted the research all for themselves, so they killed her via mental shutdown. The will was just to pin the blame on Futaba and away from them.”

“What?! They just told a little girl she killed her mom just to hide the fact that they killed her? What is it with all these shitty adults doing whatever the hell they want?!” Skull yelled.

Joker just shrugs. “I don’t know, but that’s what we’re here for.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After another two days, it was finally time to send the calling card. Akira and Ryuji are together in LeBlanc’s attic making a calling card for Futaba after a long day finishing up the rest of her palace.

“It’s done!” Ryuji yelled out once he finished piecing together the card.

Morgana and Akira look over at the card. Morgana just laughs at the logo. “That logo still looks lame as usual.”

“What was that? You try to draw a cool-looking logo then!” Ryuji yelled out.

“Jokes aside, I’m expecting there to be another boss guarding the treasure. Maybe we should discuss a strategy beforehand so we’re prepared” Morgana said as he licked his paw.

Akira nods. “Yeah, that would be a good idea. Okay, listen up. The boss is a cognition of Futaba’s mom as a sphinx. Her weakness is melee attacks.”

“Melee? Alright, that’s right up my alley!” Ryuji said, glad he’ll be of more use at the boss than against all those shadows that resisted his electric attacks.

“Melee, huh? I guess I’ll stay back on healing duty and leave things to you two. Is that all?” Morgana asked.

Akira shakes his head. “No, we can’t just attack her directly. She’ll be flying far away, so melee attacks don’t normally reach. Instead, we have to first shoot the ballista…” Akira’s voice trailed off, then he puts his hand on his head. “Dammit, I forgot about that. We won’t be able to defeat the monster guarding Futaba’s shadow like this.”

“What? Dude, we came this close and now you say we can’t steal Futaba’s treasure? Come on, there’s gotta be a way!” Ryuji said to Akira.

Akira starts racking his brain for ideas, but nothing comes up. If only he could fuse personas, he could maybe find a combination that could block melee and maybe wind attacks as well, but that wasn’t a choice this time around.

“Couldn’t we just, I don’t know, throw our weapons at her? Or maybe try to hide somewhere so she has to chase after us.” Ryuji said, trying to come up with another solution.

“That doesn’t sound very effective. Maybe if we had someone with Tetrakarn or Makarakarn we could reflect back her attacks, but even then it takes a lot of time and stamina so it’s not very effective” Morgana said as he sighed.

Tetrakarn? Makarakarn? That’s it! “I got it! There’s a way we can do this!”

“For real?! What is it?” Ryuji asked.

“I’ll need some time to prepare, but if it works out we can just reflect back her attacks. We can beat her without the ballista!”

“A way to reflect attacks back? How are you going to do that?” Morgana asked.

Akira gets up and adjusts his glasses. “You’ll see.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh oh, looks like Akira lied to Morgana. Hopefully nothing bad comes out of it.
> 
> Also, I just wanted to thank everyone for the nice comments you've all left! I've been meaning to respond, but I wanted to write more than just "Thank you" 10+ times and ended up not responding at all. You guys are awesome, and it really makes it worth it to continue writing!


	10. Hospitality

Two days later, the three of them once again arrive in front of Futaba’s palace. Akira picked Sojiro’s lock and then handed the calling card to Futaba, so it was now time for the plan. Before they go inside, Joker handed Skull 10 tubes of Physical Ointment.

“What are these?” Skull asked.

“They’re ointments. If you use one on yourself, it’ll reflect back one melee attack” Joker told him.

“I see, so that’s your plan. I can’t believe something so convenient exists! Where’d you get it?” Mona asked.

“I happen to know a doctor in the area. It was hard, but I convinced her to sell them to me” Joker said as he scratched his arm.

“Is something wrong, Joker? You’ve been scratching your arm a lot” Skull asked.

“It’s nothing.” Joker didn’t want to tell him that he went all the way to Inokashira Park and rubbed some poison ivy on his arm to convince Takemi to sell the ointments to him. It was itchy as all hell, but if it meant this was their only shot at saving Futaba, then it was worth it.

“Now here’s the strategy. Skull, you just keep using the ointments on yourself. Mona, you just keep healing us. Even if we use these, the sphinx attacks very quickly. We’ll likely get hit while we’re still busy applying them.”

“Wait, but that means Mona won’t have a barrier on him, right?” Skull asked, concerned that their weakest party member was taking the brunt of all the attacks.

“No, he will. I’ll make sure he’s properly covered in ointment at all times” Joker told him.

“What? So you’re just going to take all those hits for him? There’s no way I’m letting you do that! If someone needs to take the hits, then I’ll do it.” It was true that Skull could take the most hits out of any of them, but Joker couldn’t bear to see his friend take the burden all on himself.

“Fine, how about we take turns. That sound fair?”

Skull thinks for a minute. “I still say I should be the one to take it all, but I guess that’s fine.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The trio finally reach the top of the pyramid where they find the coffin lying in the same place. Now that Joker thinks about it, he’s curious what Futaba’s treasure is. He takes a look inside the coffin, but just like the first time the group came to steal the treasure, Futaba’s mom appeared and destroyed the top of the pyramid.

“Get ready, you two!” Joker yelled out to them.

The fight went pretty smoothly. Joker, Skull, and Mona all started out by throwing a Physical Ointment on themselves. After the first round of attacks, Mona had to go on full-time healing duty while Skull and Joker took turns throwing ointments at Mona and themselves. After using up over half of their supply of ointments, the giant sphinx finally took itself out. It also helped that she sometimes flew way up high into the air and crashed down, causing massive amounts of damage to get reflected back at her while the team was perfectly shielded from her attack.

Mona was gasping, having used up a lot of energy casting Media and Diarama on everyone. “W- we did it. Looks like your plan worked like a charm, Joker.”

With the sphinx taken out, the trio walk over to the coffin where Futaba’s treasure was held. Inside, they find another papyrus scroll, similar to the map.

“A scroll? What does it say?” Skull asked.

Joker opened it up, and to his surprise it was the fake will that Shido’s men read to Futaba! Suddenly, Futaba’s shadow appeared out of nowhere, scaring the group.

“Gah! What is it this time? Are you going to throw more boulders at us out of nowhere?” Skull asked.

Futaba’s shadow shakes her head. “No, I simply wanted to thank you. I didn’t expect you three to actually steal the treasure, but I see that I was wrong. Now please, take the treasure, and show the other me the truth.”

Futaba’s shadow disappeared and the palace immediately starts to shake.

“Not again!” Skull shouted as the three of them quickly run to the bottom of the pyramid.

“Quick, Mona! Transform!” Joker shouted.

“I can’t, I need to get to the bottom first!” Mona shouted back.

“Transform? What do you mean by that?” Skull asked.

Joker quickly grabbed Mona by the head and threw him forwards so that he’d reach the bottom faster. Mona takes the opportunity and transforms into the Monabus.

“Whoa, what? Mona can turn into a freakin’ bus?!” Skull shouted before Joker grabbed his wrist and threw him at the Monabus.

The three of them just barely made it back out in front of LeBlanc, panting from yet another near-death experience trying to escape a palace.

Sojiro walks out of the cafe, startled by all the ruckus outside. “What was that noise?” He asked the two of them.

Akira gets up. “Sorry, we were jogging in the area and I ended up tripping. We’ll get out of your way now, Boss.”

Akira walks towards Sojiro’s house with Ryuji following behind. They go inside and as they approach Futaba’s room, they hear noises. “Is that… crying? We didn’t mess up, did we?” Ryuji asked.

The three of them walk inside and see Futaba in her chair crying.

Akira slowly approaches Futaba. “Are you okay, Futaba?”

Futaba just continues crying. “I- I remember now. My mom- she- she had a mental shutdown. And then- then she fell down- and a car hit her.”

The three of them just stood there, not sure of what to do in this situation. Akira then remembers the treasure and pulls out a picture from his pocket. “Here you go, Futaba. This belongs to you.”

Futaba takes the picture from Akira. “This is… a picture of me and my mom.” Tears start streaking down Futaba’s face as she starts crying even harder than before. “This was- the last- picture we took- before- before-”

Akira puts his hand on Futaba’s head. “We’ll leave you alone for now. Take your time, I’m sure there’s a lot on your mind right now. When you’re ready to talk, please message me, okay?”

Futaba nods her head as she continues crying her eyes out.

The two of them leave Futaba’s room, giving her time to herself. “So, I guess that was a success. What now?” Ryuji asked.

“Now we just wait. Futaba’s a strong girl, she’ll be fine in no time. In the meantime, I guess we can take a break. Futaba’s palace seems to have taken a huge toll on us.”

“I see. Then I guess I’ll see you at school tomorrow for the assembly.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day, Akira wakes up seeing a text from Futaba sent at 3 in the morning.

**Futaba:** “Hey, thanks for yesterday. I’m feeling better now, so it’s time for me to hold up my end of the bargain. Please come over whenever you wake up.”

After finishing his breakfast of curry that Sojiro made, he walks over to Sojiro’s house, picking the lock again to go inside. After he knocks on Futaba’s door, Futaba walks over and opens it. “Come on in.”

Walking inside, Akira almost forgot how messy Futaba’s room was before he cleaned it up that time she took down Medjed alone.

“So, Akira. Thanks for stealing my heart. I still find it a bit hard to believe, but I guess those rumors about the Phantom Thieves were true. I’ll ignore the fact that you knew about those bugs in LeBlanc as well as how you knew I was the original Medjed. Those are nothing compared to being able to forcefully change a person’s heart.” Akira was thankful for that, because he didn’t think it was a good idea to go around telling the whole world that he traveled back in time. He already slipped up when all of his confidants found out he was a phantom thief, he wasn’t going to make the same mistake again. “So what do the mysterious Phantom Thieves want with me? I seem to recall something about a fansite?”

“That’s right, the Phantom Aficionado Website. I was wondering if it was possible for you to make a forum for our group. Just somewhere for users to anonymously talk to each other about the phantom thieves.”

Futaba sits back in her chair and thinks. “A forum, huh? Sure, that’s simple enough. What kind of features would you like on it?”

Akira thinks for a minute. “Just a simple poll at the front asking if people believe the phantom thieves exist would be nice. If possible, maybe some way for people to post names of people they’d like to request a change of heart for.” Akira stopped himself there, not wanting to put too much on Futaba’s plate.

Futaba sits back up. “That’s it? Boring~” She thinks for a minute before she continues. “I have a few ideas of my own. I’ll get started on the basic framework. When I’m done, I’ll message you the link and you can tell me what you think.” As soon as Futaba says that, she flexes her fingers and quickly starts typing away on her keyboard.

Akira lets her know that he’s heading for school, but she’s so caught up in her work that she completely blocks out his voice.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After arriving at school, Akira meets up with Ryuji and they head for the gym together for the school assembly. It was just as boring as Akira remembered, except this time he had to sit through the entire thing instead of getting shooed out of the gym after Kamoshida’s confession.

“Man, what was even the point of that assembly? Everything was Kamoshida’s fault in the first place! Let him be the one to suffer, not us!” Ryuji said as he hanged his head in disappointment. 

“Hey, at least you only had to sit through that once. This is my second time hearing the same lecture.”

“Ouch, sucks to be you. Well anyways, now that that’s over with, you wanna go head for the diner? I’m starving right now!”

“Sorry, but I have somewhere I need to be. Maybe tomorrow.”

“Somewhere to be? Could it be a date?” Ryuji asked as he nudged Akira.

“No, I was going to go visit Mishima in the hospital to see if he woke up or not.”

There is a heavy silence in the air before Ryuji speaks up. “I see. Mind if I tag along?”

“Of course, I’m sure Mishima would like that.”

The two boys take the train over to Shibuya where they take a slight detour.

“Hey Akira, the hospital’s that way. Where are you going?”

“Just buying some flowers.”

“Oh right, we’re supposed to bring a gift when visiting the hospital.” Ryuji watched as Akira picked out an assortment of flowers for Mishima. After a few minutes of arranging flowers in a bouquet, Akira walks over to the lady in charge of the stand.

“Visiting someone at the hospital?” she asked as she took a look at the bouquet.

“What?! How’d you know that?” Ryuji asked.

“Why, it’s the arrangement of flowers. They’re all very light, soft colors, typical of what you would send someone in the hospital. You seem very knowledgeable on flowers.” 

“Yeah, I used to work in a flower shop” Akira responded.

“Flower shop? I thought you said you worked at a convenience store!”

“I did. I also worked at a beef bowl shop and a crossdressing bar.”

Ryuji gets taken aback by the last one. “A crossdressing bar?!” He couldn’t help imagining Akira wearing a dress.

Akira starts lightly chuckling. “I didn’t crossdress while I was there in case you were wondering. The bar owner said she didn’t want to violate any entertainment laws.”

“Oh, I see” Ryuji said as he scratched his head. He looks over at some flowers and picks one up. “Hey Akira, would this be a good flower to give to Mishima?”

Akira walks over and sees what Ryuji is holding up before shaking his head. “That’s a chrysanthemum. They’re used for decorating funerals.”

Ryuji quickly puts the flower back and picks out another one. “What about this?”

“That’s a camellia. They’re considered bad luck.”

Ryuji puts the camellia back and picks out yet another. “Okay, this one’s gotta be a good one! Plus it smells really nice!”

Akira shakes his head again. “That’s a lily. We can’t bring that to the hospital because the smell’s too strong. It might affect some of the patients.”

Ryuji sighs and picks out one last flower. “Okay fine, what about this?” This time instead of shaking his head, Akira just starts chuckling. “What’s so funny?”

“That’s a daffodil. It symbolizes unrequited love.”

Ryuji starts blushing and puts the flower back. “Gah, this is too hard! Help me pick out something then!”

In the end, Akira ended up picking out a second bouquet with slightly different flowers for Ryuji to bring to the hospital. 

The two of them arrived at the hospital, but before they enter, Akira tells Ryuji to take off his jacket.

“My jacket? Uh, sure. Why do you want it?”

Akira proceeds to take off his jacket as well and stuffs it inside his bag. “Wearing too much black in a hospital is also bad manners. It reminds people too much of funerals.”

“For real? Man, all these rules.”

As Akira puts his jacket in his bag, Morgana jumps out and walks away saying he’ll take a stroll around the hospital since his bag was getting too cramped.

The two of them enter Mishima’s room where they see him lying on the bed, still unconscious. They go ahead and put down their bouquets on the table and sit down next to the bed. Akira just sits there, hoping that Mishima would finally wake up.

“Hey, cheer up, Akira! Mishima will wake up eventually!” Ryuji said, trying to lighten the mood.

Akira just sits there and continues to stare at the bed.

“Come on, man, you said Shiho woke up eventually, right? I’m sure Mishima’s fine, just give him some more time!”

There is another moment of silence before Akira finally speaks. “You know, Shiho was supposed to be awake by now.” Ryuji’s eyes go wide as he hears what Akira said. “During the assembly, Kamoshida was supposed to walk in and confess. After that, the assembly gets called off. Ann gets a call soon afterwards from the hospital letting her know Shiho woke up. It’s already three hours late and Mishima still isn’t awake.” Ryuji notices the tears streaking down Akira’s face. “Am I really doing the right thing? I tried to change things for the better, but it looks like things are only getting worse. Shiho’s life became a mess before, but at least she was alive! What if Mishima never wakes up? What if someone else ends up dying because of me?!”

Ryuji tries to put his hand on Akira’s shoulder, but he stops partway, not certain on what he should do in the situation. “Look, things may not have worked out the way you expected, but at least you still helped someone! Lots of someones in fact! If you didn’t do anything, Kamoshida would have continued to torture all the volleyball members. Ann doesn’t have to continue pretending to be Kamoshida’s girlfriend anymore. Shiho finally quit the volleyball team with no regrets. Heck, people even stopped ignoring me after so long!”

Akira quickly turns his head towards Ryuji. “What did you say?”

“Huh? C’mon, don’t make me repeat myself! It was embarrassing enough the first time” Ryuji said as he scratched his face.

“Did you say people stopped ignoring you?”

“Huh? Uh, yeah. It feels a bit weird. The guy sitting next to me asked to borrow a pencil even though he’d be willing to ask someone on the opposite side of the class if he had to. Some of the girls in the class even came up to me and said they felt so bad for what Kamoshida did.”

Akira keeps staring at Ryuji for a moment before turning back towards the bed and smiling. “I see, so I did make one good change at least.”

Ryuji looks at Akira with a confused look. “What do you mean by that?”

“Before when Kamoshida confessed, he never said anything about what he did to you. You were still branded as  _ that _ Sakamoto and avoided by all your classmates. I’m glad you don’t have to go through that anymore.”

“I see. What about you? Are people still avoiding you because of uh… you-know-what?” Akira nods back at Ryuji. “I see… Man, even after I told all those people you’re a good guy, they still do this.”

“What? You said that?” Akira was surprised that Ryuji defended him.

“Huh? Well, yeah. You’re the best friend a guy could have, of course I’d defend you.” Ryuji starts blushing and looks away while scratching his cheek. “And if it means anything, I wouldn’t mind being ignored by everyone as long as you’re there for me.”

Hearing Ryuji say that was practically torture for Akira. He was happy. So happy that he also had to refrain himself from proclaiming his love for Ryuji at the top of his lungs.

Once visiting hours were over, the two of them headed for their homes.

“So I guess I’ll see you later” Ryuji said right before they had to go different directions.

“Yeah. I’ll see you once school starts up again.” Akira started heading towards the station.

“Wait!” Ryuji shouted. Once Akira turns to face Ryuji, Ryuji starts scratching his cheek. “T-tomorrow. Wanna go to Dome Town with me tomorrow?”

“Sure, I’d love to go.” The invitation surprised Akira. Ryuji never invited him to Dome Town alone before! 

“Alright! See you tomorrow then!” Ryuji said as he did a quick fist pump. 

The two wave goodbye and go their separate ways. Tomorrow Akira gets to hang out with Ryuji. Alone. In Dome Town. Well, Morgana will probably be there as well, but at least he doesn’t have to worry about the two of them fighting anymore. Wait, does this count as a date? Akira suddenly freezes as he realizes that. A date with Ryuji. Now he’ll be so nervous he won’t be able to fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forcing Morgana into the dialogue is hard, so let's just pretend he doesn't exist outside Phantom Thief business, deal?


	11. An Amusing Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter didn't quite come out as well as I hoped. Had such a bad case of writer's block the past few weeks so it took a lot longer than expected.

“Dude, what happened? You look like a mess!”

“Nothing, I’m fine.” Just as Akira expected, he got no sleep at all. He was up all night thinking about his date with Ryuji. Well, “date”. There’s no way Ryuji thinks of this as a date. Neither should Akira, but being alone with his crush was making his mind go in all sorts of directions, and none of them straight.

The two of them walked over to the amusement park with Ryuji staring excitedly at the roller coaster. “Hey Akira, we should-”

Ryuji stops himself mid-sentence as Akira lets out another yawn. “We should what?”

Ryuji scratched his head as he tried to make a decision. On one hand he  _ really _ wanted to ride the roller coaster. On the other hand, Akira seemed really tired. He didn’t want to force him to go on the ride with him. “W-we should go play some of the carnival games over there!”

“Huh? You sure? We could go on the roller coaster first if you want” Akira asked, confused about why Ryuji suddenly decided to play carnival games instead.

“It’s fine, come on! It’ll be fun!” Ryuji said as he grabbed Akira’s wrist and pulled him over to a booth.

The two of them went around playing various games. They ended up losing far more than they won and only got a few small prizes which Akira stuffed in his bag together with Morgana.

“Man, that was a lot of fun, right, Akira?” Ryuji asked as he beamed a smile to his friend.

“Yeah, it was.” While Akira didn’t care too much for all the rigged carnival games, he had to admit that playing them together with Ryuji was a lot more fun than he expected. Sure they were playing games that they had essentially no chance of winning, but it beat going on the roller coasters. He wasn’t quite in the mood for puke-inducing rides with how little sleep he got. They walk around  more until Ryuji stops dead in his tracks. “What’s wrong, Ryuji?”

“Duuuuude, check out that prize!” Ryuji ran over to a booth with a bunch of bottles that they had to knock down with baseballs. And the grand prize for knocking down the bottles was none other than a giant plushie of a skeleton pirate. “Doesn’t that look just like Captain Kidd?”

Akira laughs to himself. A giant skeleton plushie certainly did fit Ryuji. “You want me to win that for you?”

“What? No way, I can do it myself! Just watch!” As Ryuji said that, he paid the attendant and played a few games. And by a few, it was more like 10. “Gah, this game’s impossible! How’s anyone supposed to win this?”

Akira walked over and grabbed the last baseball Ryuji had left over. “That’s because these games are rigged. The bottles are all heavier at the bottom. You gotta throw it like this.” Akira threw the baseball at the bottles and knocked them all down with one strike.

“Dude, that was amazing!”

The attendant handed Akira his prize. He might not have won the grand prize, but he did get a pretty big skeleton plushie. “Here you go, Ryuji.”

“For real? Thanks! Man, now I gotta go win you something.” Ryuji looks around at the booths again and sees a ring toss game. “Oh, look over there! Doesn’t that prize look cool?”

Akira looks over and sees that the prizes at the ring toss game contained plushies of demons that vaguely resembled Arsene. “A ring toss, though? Those games are luck-based. You’d be lucky to even get one of the smaller prizes.”

Completely ignoring Akira’s comment, Ryuji runs over and pays the attendant before getting ready to toss a bunch of rings in the center. After 3 whole games, Ryuji was down to his last ring. “Man, this sucks. Here I was hoping I could just get lucky and win something for you.”

“Don’t feel bad, Ryuji. You tried your best” Akira said as he pat Ryuji’s back to reassure him.

“Yeah, and look where my best has gotten me” Ryuji said as he lazily threw the last ring in a random direction. The ring bounces around a few times before finally landing on one of the marked bottles.

“We have a winner!” the attendant yelled out as he rang a bell.

Ryuji just stares, dropping his jaw when he realizes what just happened.

“See? Looks like your hard work paid off after all, Ryuji.”

The attendant handed Ryuji his prize. It wasn’t anything special, just a normal-sized plushie that resembled Arsene. When Ryuji receives it, he hesitates. “Here you go, Akira. I feel a bit bad giving you such a shitty prize, but it’s the best I’ve got for now.”

Akira shakes his head. “No, I love it! It’s the thought that counts, after all.” Akira really did like Ryuji’s present. Sure it was just a toy that he could just buy for a few yen online, but it was a nice reminder of his date with Ryuji. It was a nice replacement for the ramen bowl that Ryuji previously gave him, and this one had more thought behind it.

Akira takes out his phone and checks the time. “Hey Ryuji, it’s getting late. We should head over to the roller coasters so we can get on before the park closes.”

The two of them walk over to the roller coasters, but before Akira gets in line, Ryuji suddenly pulls on his sleeve. “Wait, Akira.”

“What is it?”

Ryuji hesitates a bit, but finally musters up the courage to say it. “Do you wanna go on that instead?”

Akira looks over and has to do a double take to make sure he was looking in the right direction. “The Ferris Wheel?” Ryuji shyly nods. “I mean, I don’t mind, but are you sure? I know how much you were looking forward to the roller coaster” Akira responded as he let out another yawn.

“Yeah, I’m sure. We can always go on the roller coasters some other day. Plus, we can probably get a nice view of the city from up there!”

The two of them went into the line for the Ferris Wheel. Seems like a lot of people had the same idea, because the line was pretty long. Comparable to the line for the roller coaster at the very least. 

“Oh man, the park closes in just a few minutes. I really hope we made it in time” Ryuji said as he looked at his phone.

“Don’t worry, looks like you two get to have the last spot for the night” the attendant told them.

“For real? That’s awesome! Isn’t that great, Akira?”

“Lucky for you two. It’s like fate is trying to let you know what a perfect couple you are” the attendant said as she smiled back at them.

Both Akira and Ryuji get taken aback by the statement. “C-c-couple? N-no! We’re just friends!” Ryuji yelled out. Hearing Ryuji say that, Akira’s suddenly reminded that they’re merely friends having fun in the amusement park and not on a date.

“Oh, is that so? Sorry, the only time I see two guys alone on the Ferris Wheel is when they’re on a date. I shouldn’t have assumed that.”

There was an awkward silence as the two of them got on the last cabin on the Ferris Wheel, the two of them refusing to look the other in the eye out of sheer embarrassment. It took a solid minute before Ryuji finally broke the silence. “That attendant lady sure was funny, huh? You and me? A couple? There’s no way that’d ever happen!” Ryuji said as he let out a nervous laugh.

Akira felt like a knife stabbed his heart. “Yeah, no way that’d ever happen.” Akira stared out the window.

Ryuji does the same, taking in the sight of the city lit up at night. “Hey Akira, you think I can see my apartment from up here?”

“I think we’re a bit too far away from Shibuya for that” Akira said as he chuckled.

“Hey, a guy can dream, you know!” Ryuji said as he put his face up against the window. Ryuji is so caught up in trying to search around the area that he drops his plushie on the ground. Both Ryuji and Akira reach down and grab it, touching each other’s hand in the process. They both immediately retracted their hands. “S-sorry” Ryuji said as he picked up his plushie and hugged it tightly. “Hey Akira, did we ever do things like this?”

Akira was a bit confused by the question. “You mean hang out? Yeah, we used hang out all the time. We were best friends, after all.”

“Even going on the Ferris Wheel together and stuff like that?”

Akira pauses before answering. He felt like he could vaguely remember something about the Ferris Wheel. “No, we just went on the roller coaster instead.” Akira struggles to remember something else. That’s right, there was that one time he joked about going on the Ferris Wheel together. Ryuji vehemently said no back then. “What made you decide to go on the Ferris Wheel?”

“Huh? Oh, uh, you know… You looked tired, so I was thinking you’d rather be on a slow and relaxing ride instead. Was I wrong on that?”

“N-no. I have to admit I am a bit glad we aren’t riding the roller coaster right now, but you didn’t have to do that. It’s not like one ride will kill me.”

“Come on, I invited you here and all. I can’t just drag you around and expect to be the only one to have fun. Besides, I’m fine just being here with you…” Ryuji’s voice trailed off at the end, embarrassed that he actually said that.

Akira could feel his face heat up as well. Ryuji? Being considerate? Again? Who is this and what happened to the Ryuji he knows and loves? Oh right, he faded from existence… By the time they got off the ride, Akira was having a hard time keeping his eyes open. He was reaching his limit, and no amount of caffeine was going to help him.

The two of them walked over to the station, with Akira doing his best to stay awake. By the time they sat down though, it was too late.

“Man, I had a lot of fun today! What about you, Akira? Akira?” Ryuji looked over at Akira whose eyes were closed and was starting to lean away from him. Before Akira falls over, Ryuji quickly puts an arm around Akira to catch him, letting him sleep on his shoulder for the rest of the ride back to LeBlanc. “Looks like you really wore yourself out today, huh, buddy.”

Once the two of them arrived back at Shibuya, Ryuji carried Akira on his back all the way to the train connecting back to Yongen-Jaya, and then back to LeBlanc where Boss just let him up without any questions.

“Alright, buddy, we’re back now. Let’s get you to bed.” Ryuji walked over to Akira’s bed and laid him down. Before he could get up and leave, he felt a hand grab his shirt, pulling him on the bed. “A-Akira?!” He goes silent as he hears Akira talking in his sleep.

“Ryuji… Morgana… everyone… please, don’t go…” Akira started crying in his sleep. He clung onto Ryuji, refusing to let go. 

Ryuji just laid there, not daring to move a muscle. A part of him wanted to wake up Akira and let him know everything’s alright, but at the same time he didn’t want to disturb Akira’s sleep. “Hey Mona, is Akira always like this?”

Morgana droops his ears and nods. “Yeah. I don’t know what happened in his past life, but it’s been traumatizing him for the past month. He cries at least a few times each week.”

“I see… He must have been through a lot.” Ryuji continued to laid there, waiting for Akira to let go. “Looks like I’m stuck here for the night. Hope you don’t mind.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll just take the couch. More room for me” Morgana said as he turned off the light and jumped on the couch. “Now go to bed, Ryuji.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sojiro walked up the stairs, annoyed that Ryuji still had not come down yet. “Hey kid, are you leaving or no-” When he reaches the top, he sees Akira and Ryuji cuddling together in their sleep. Sojiro scratches his head as he heads back down to lock up for the night. “Only one month and the kid’s already found a boyfriend? And to think I used to consider myself quite the ladies man.”


	12. A Site To Behold

Akira woke up the next morning and took out his phone to check the time. 8am? It was way too early. He notices a text from Futaba as well and checks its contents.

**Futaba:** “Hey, I finished the Phansite. Let me know what you think.”

Seeing the message, Akira puts his phone back. He’ll check it later when he’s awake. He wraps his arms around Ryuji before going back to sleep. Wait, Ryuji? “Ah!” Akira yells out before pushing Ryuji off the bed.

“Ow! Hey, what was that for?!”

“W-w-w-what are you doing in my bed?!” Akira stammered as he sat up against the wall.

“Huh? You kinda grabbed my shirt and refused to let go so I had to stay here overnight.”

Akira’s face heated up in embarrassment. “O-oh yeah, Futaba said she finished the Phansite!” Akira yelled out, trying to change the subject. He clicked the link Futaba sent and just stared at the screen, wide-eyed.

“Hey, let me see!” Ryuji shouted as he grabbed Akira’s phone out of his hand. “Whoa, this is the Phansite? It looks amazing! That Futaba girl sure outdid herself!”

Akira gets his phone back from Ryuji and then scrolls through the site. It’s a huge improvement from what Mishima created. Guess he shouldn’t have expected any less of a genius hacker like Futaba. The site had more of a high-tech design, and there on the front was the familiar question “Do you think the Phantom Thieves are real?” 

Something else Akira noticed was a button near the top to request a change of heart. Clicking on it led to a form asking for a name and a description of the person. There was also a message saying that the name will be censored. Looks like Futaba was putting an emphasis on respecting people’s privacy online, which was ironic considering how she installed a virus on his phone to spy on him. Well, at least he didn’t have to worry about that anymore. That’s one benefit of starting the year over. Right when Akira was about to text Futaba back, another text message popped up, this time from an anonymous number.

**Unknown:** “Natsuhiko Nakanohara - My ex-boyfriend has been stalking me and I have no idea what to do.”

Akira looks at the message both surprised and confused. The name was certainly familiar. He’s the former pupil of Madarame’s who started stalking his ex-girlfriend. But why did an unknown number suddenly text him his name? His phone sounds again as he gets another text from Futaba.

**Futaba:** “Oh right, I forgot to mention. I set up a bot to text you with any change of heart requests.”

**Futaba:** “The number doesn’t exist, so don’t worry about getting caught because of it. I made sure no one can trace it.”

**Futaba:** “I’m sure you’re busy out there saving the world and all, so might as well make your life easier.”

**Futaba:** “If it gets annoying, let me know so I can turn it off.”

A bot that automatically texts him whenever they get a new request? Talk about convenient! That certainly makes it easier than sorting through hundreds of forum posts that don’t even have a name half the time. He quickly shoots Futaba a text to thank her.

**Akira:** “It’s amazing! Thanks Futaba, you’re the best!”

“Ryuji, get dressed. We’re going somewhere” Akira said as he got up from the bed.

“Huh? Okay, where to?”

“Shibuya station. We’re going down to Mementos for a smaller change of heart.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~   
The two boys and their talking cat headed for Shibuya station where they entered the palace of the people, Mementos.

“Whoa, so whose palace is this? I didn’t hear a name or any keywords” Skull asked.

“Mementos is everyone’s palace!” Mona responded. “This is where we can change the hearts of people who do not have a palace, like that Nakanohara guy.”

“I see, so it’s kinda like helping an old lady finding her way in the subway. We probably won’t be getting much recognition like if we were to target some big shots, but it still feels good to help people anyways!” Skull said as he beamed a smile brighter than the sun. “But this place looks pretty big. Are we going to see the return of the Monabus?”

“Yup, you guessed it!” Mona said as he ran over to the side and transformed into the Monabus again.

“Awesome! Can I drive?”

“Of course! Just get in the driver’s seat and pull the lever on the bottom” Mona responded before Joker could.

Skull and Joker both got into the Monabus with Skull in the driver’s seat and Joker in the passenger’s seat. Joker wasn’t exactly looking forward to Skull driving. Let’s just say that the last time anyone else drove, the entire team unanimously decided that no one except Joker and Queen should drive the Monabus. Ever.

“Alright, let’s put the pedal to the metal!” Skull shouted as he stomped down on the gas pedal as hard as he could.

“W-wait, that doesn’t seem like such a good ideaaaaaaaaaa-” Mona shouted as they started driving through Mementos at top speeds.

“S-skull, maybe you should slow down” Joker said just as Skull runs over a shadow.

“Dude, did you see that? I just sent that shadow flying!”

After a few very long minutes, the trio managed to make it to their destination in record time.

“Man, that was a lot of fun! Right, guys?”

Akira and Mona were both on the ground, feeling a bit sick from the ride. Skull had gone at least twice the legal speed limit and managed to just barely not crash into any walls. Was this Skull’s way of making up for not going on the roller coaster? Now Joker wished they hadn’t gone on the Ferris Wheel.

“Maybe I should drive from now on” Joker said as he tried his best not to throw up.

“I have to agree” Mona said, also trying not to throw up.

“Awww, fine…” Skull whined, disappointed that he won’t be driving anymore anytime soon.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The group returned to Shibuya Station after successfully changing Nakanohara’s heart.

“That’s it? Man, I was hoping for, well, something more” Ryuji whined.

“Careful, last time we took Phantom Thief business too lightly we ended up getting framed for murder and became wanted criminals.” 

Ryuji lets out a gulp. Maybe this whole phantom thief thing wasn’t really such a good idea after all. Seeing Ryuji’s expression, Akira lets out a light chuckle. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“I’m holding you to it then” Ryuji said as he let out a nervous laugh. Suddenly Ryuji’s stomach starts growling.

“Let’s go back to LeBlanc. I’ll treat you to some curry.”

“More curry? Alright, I’m in!”

As the two boys walked down the stairs of the subway, they noticed a crowd of people.

“Whoa, why’s there so many people now?” Ryuji asked. Akira just shrugs, not knowing what was going on either.

“Madarame-sensei, can I please have your autograph?”

Madarame? Akira runs over to the crowd and sure enough, he sees Madarame in the center.

“What is it, Akira? Is he someone you know?”

Before Akira can answer, a reporter runs past him and knocks him over. Before Akira falls on the ground, Ryuji puts an arm out and helps him up. “Hey, watch it asshole! Are you okay, Akira?”

“Y-yeah, I’m fine.” Akira turns his head away from Ryuji in an attempt to hide his blush. Akira starts walking towards the Yongen-Jaya line. “The train should be arriving soon. We should hurry. Ryuji?” Akira looks over at Ryuji who’s staring off into the distance. Akira looks over where Ryuji is staring at and sees nothing but the crowd. “Is something wrong, Ryuji?”

Ryuji continues staring before shaking his head. “It’s nothing.”

On the way back to LeBlanc, Ryuji would occasionally take glimpses behind him. Why did Akira get a sense of familiarity? When the two of them were just about to turn right onto the street LeBlanc was on, Ryuji suddenly wraps an arm around Akira and continues walking down the street. “R-Ryuji?!”

“Sh! Just follow me” Ryuji said as he walked over to Takemi’s Clinic with Akira in his arm. When they were right in front of the clinic, he let go of Akira and stood in front of the door behind the wall.

“Ryuji, what are you doing?” As soon as Akira asked that, Ryuji stuck his towards him and grabbed… another hand? Akira turns around and sees a familiar face. Yusuke?! Wait, Ryuji knew they were being followed? Do blondes just have some sort of sixth sense for stalkers or something?

“Alright, why were you following us?!” Ryuji demanded.

“I was not following you, I merely had a question to ask!” Yusuke said as he pulled his hand back. Yusuke approached Akira. This was certainly a familiar scene. “Will you please model for me?”

Model? Akira? Yusuke did express his desire to draw Akira, but that didn’t happen until  _ after _ they became friends. What made him decide on Akira this time around? Still, this was a perfect opportunity. 

“Sorry, but we’re not interes-” Before Ryuji could finish talking, Akira interrupts him.

“Sure, I’ll model for you.”

“Huh?!” Ryuji yelled out.

“You will? Excellent! When are you available?” Yusuke asked.

“Whoa whoa whoa, time out! We need a minute.” Ryuji pulled Akira aside. “Dude, what’s going on? Why are you agreeing to model for this guy?”

“Don’t worry, he’s a friend. We’ll need his help to infiltrate our next target’s palace.”

“A friend? What kind of weird friends did you make? I don’t trust this guy one bit. Sounds like a scam if you ask me.”

“Yusuke’s weird, but he’s definitely not a scam artist. All he’s going to do is paint a picture of me. Worst case scenario, he’d ask to do a nude painting.”

“N-nude?!” Ryuji yelled out loud enough for everyone on the street to hear.

Akira quickly covers Ryuji’s mouth. “It’s fine, just trust me on this” Akira said as he walked back over to Yusuke. “I’ll need some time, I’ll need to see how my schedule works out. I’ll contact you when I’m free. Is that fine for you?”

“Oh yes, certainly! Here’s my card. Just call the number on there when you get the time.” After handing Akira his card, Yusuke took a quick bow and walked away.

Akira and Ryuji headed back to Akira’s room in LeBlanc, with Ryuji very much not happy with the situation. “Alright Akira, who was that and why is he drawing you naked?” Ryuji demanded.

“That was Yusuke. He’s an artist studying under our next target, Madarame. And he’s not going to draw me naked. Probably.”

“Probably?! Dude, why do we need his help? Can’t we just go in and steal the treasure like last time?”

“Unfortunately that’s not possible. There’s a barrier inside of Madarame’s palace, and the only way to open it is by making sure Madarame sees a specific door in his house unlocked. I’ll need to go in and unlock the door.”

“Then can’t we just, I don’t know, fight his shadow and get out? We don’t need his treasure or anything, do we?”

“No, we have to steal the treasure or else we can’t take away a person’s distorted desires” Morgana chimed in. To be fair they did manage to change Sae’s heart without stealing her treasure. That said, Akira didn’t think Madarame will be as easy to convince as Sae, so he kept his mouth shut. 

“Who even is this Madarame person anyways? Why do we gotta change his heart?”

“Remember that crowd back at the station? The guy in the center was Madarame.”

Ryuji thinks back to what happened at the station. “Oh yeah, now that you mention it. But what’s wrong with that guy anyways? He didn’t seem evil or anything like Kamoshida.”

“Madarame is a famous artist, and also Yusuke’s adoptive father. He’s been plagiarizing art from his students, including Yusuke, and ruining their reputations in the art world if they try to escape. He also let Yusuke’s mom die when she had a seizure.”

“What? Man, he sounds just as bad as Kamoshida!”

“So I take it you’re fine with changing Madarame’s heart?”

Ryuji was silent. “I still don’t like your plan, but we gotta do what we gotta do.”

“Good. Then we’ll go to Madarame’s palace tomorrow. I need to text Yusuke to see if he’s available some time in the next few days.” Akira takes out his phone to shoot Yusuke a text. Ryuji on the other hand sits there pouting.


	13. Confessions

Joker, Skull, and Mona arrived in Madarame’s palace. The trio was making great progress inside. After all, Madarame’s palace was nothing compared to Futaba’s. That said, Joker and Mona couldn’t help but notice Skull’s...aggressive behavior.

“Skull, calm down! You’re going to wear yourself out if you keep fighting like that!” Mona yelled at Skull.

Skull ignored Mona and continued to brutally smack around shadows with his pipe. Joker put his hand on Skull’s shoulder to stop him. “Skull, take it easy. The shadows here are really weak, you don’t need to fight so hard.”

Skull shrugs off Joker’s hand. “Hey, you said it yourself. Don’t take Phantom Thief business too lightly.”

Joker watched as Skull continued walking ahead, taking out all of the shadows along the way. “Ryuji…”

The trio arrived at the barrier halfway through the palace.

“This must be the barrier you mentioned, Joker” Mona said.

“That’s right. I need to head back out and meet Fo- I mean Yusuke now. In the meantime, the two of you stay here and wait for the security system to go down. As soon as it goes down, rush inside and disable the security for good.”

“You got it, Joker” Mona responded.

Mona and Joker look over in Skull’s direction. “Yeah yeah, I got it.”

“Then if you’ll excuse me” Joker said as he headed back to the real world.

As soon as Joker left, Skull immediately started venting his anger. “Gah, I can’t stand this! Why’s Akira gotta go and go meet up with that Yusuke guy?”

Mona suddenly starts laughing to himself. “Ohhh, sounds like someone’s jealous~”

“I ain’t jealous, okay? I just don’t trust him!” Skull said as he sat down and crossed his arms.

Mona continued to tease Skull. “And I’m sure it has nothing to do with Akira getting naked for another guy, right?”

“T-that...That’s not it! I just don’t want the whole world seeing Akira naked! What do you think will happen to his reputation if everyone at school finds out?”

“Hmmm~?” Mona looked at Skull with a smug grin on his face.

“Stop looking at me like that!”

“Skull, what do you think of Akira?”

Skull gets taken aback. “Huh? He’s a great friend.”

“Is that it? Come on, how do you really feel about him?” Mona asked as he nudged Skull.

“Like I said, he’s just a friend. That’s it.” Skull was starting to get annoyed at Mona’s barrage of questions.

“Oh, then I guess once I regain my true form, I’ll go ahead and ask Akira to be my boyfriend.”

Skull’s eyes go wide as he stares at Mona. “Huh?!”

“You heard me. Once I’m human again I’ll proclaim my love for Akira. Then we’ll be together forever and nothing will stand in our way.”

Skull gets up from the ground. “You can’t!”

“Oh, and why not?”

“Because… Because you’re a cat!” Skull shouted out.

“Hey, I am not a cat! Even Akira said so! Now stop lying and just admit it already!” Mona shouted, offended that Skull actually went there.

“Admit what? There’s nothing to admit!”

“Admit that you love Akira!”

“Huh?!” Skull had a feeling this was coming up, but he didn’t expect Mona to be so blunt. “I just said we’re friends!”

“And friends don’t get jealous of their friend when someone asks to draw him! Or when he hugs another girl!”

“That’s- I- Grh, alright! I love Akira, okay?! You happy?!” Skull shouted out at the top of his lungs.

“Very” Mona said as he put his hands on his hips in triumph. “So how long have you liked him?”

Skull sits back down on the ground buries his face in his legs. “I don’t know, probably since after Kamoshida. I could never repay him for everything he’s done for me. Plus it’s just so much fun being with him. He makes me feel free.”

“Free? What does that mean?”

“I don’t know, okay? I just feel like I can be myself or something, you know?”

There is an awkward silence between the two. Skull just continued to sit there with his face in his legs.

“So, when do you plan on asking Akira out?” Mona asked.

“Never.”

“Come on, you can’t just hide your feelings forever.”

“Yes I can, and I will.”

Mona lets out a sigh. Skull was a lot more stubborn than he expected. “Skull, if you won’t tell him then I will.”

Skull looks up and glares at Mona. “Don’t you dare do that!”

“Come on Skull, you’ll never have a chance with Akira if you don’t even confess.”

Skull puts his chin on his knees and starts drawing circles on the ground. “It doesn’t matter. Akira likes Ann, I don’t have a chance with him. Plus, Akira said I’ll find a girlfriend some time in the next few months.”

“Oh yeah, who is it?” Mona asked as he crossed his arms.

“I… I don’t know. All I know is Akira said someone was supposed to confess to me.”

“And what if you never even meet this girl? Or what if you do meet her and she doesn’t fall in love with you?”

“Come on, Akira’s already seen the future. He knows what’s gonna happen.”

“No he doesn’t! He knows the events as they played out in  _ his _ timeline. Don’t forget that Mishima guy already jumped off the roof instead of Shiho. We don’t know who this mysterious girl is or how she ended up falling for you. Plus, you might not even like this girl!” 

Skull knew what Mona said was true, but he didn’t want to think about it. “I know, okay? I’m not that dumb! But I’m scared, you know? What if Akira doesn’t like me back? What if we stop being friends? He’s the only real friend I have! I don’t want to lose that!”

“Ryuji, do you really think Akira is that kind of person?”

Skull shakes his head. “No.”

“Then what’s there to be afraid of? Just ask him out! Even if he rejects you, at least you’ll have some closure, right?”

“I… I guess. But I need some time. I’m not ready yet.”

“It’s fine, take your time.”

“Oh, and Mona. Thanks.”

“No problem. But don’t take too long or I’ll ask out Akira before you!” Mona teased Skull.

“Y-you’re not serious, are you?”

Mona laughs at Skull. “Don’t worry, I’m not into guys. I just wanted to see how you’d react.”

“Ahaha, I see… Oh yeah, you said Akira told you about your true form, right? How do you look as a human?”

“I don’t know, I never asked Akira. I want it to be a surprise, though. Oh, I already can’t wait! With every palace we take down, we’re getting closer and closer to the depths of Mementos!” Mona cheerfully shouted.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Akira arrived back at Madarame’s shack in the real world. He goes and presses the doorbell and gets greeted by Yusuke.

“Ah, you’re here! Please, come in and have a seat” Yusuke said

Walking into the shack, Akira takes notice that Madarame was nowhere to be found. “Is Madarame out?”

“Yes, Sensei is a busy man. He is out attending his art gallery. He should be back in about two hours.”

Two hours? Ouch, Akira felt bad for Ryuji and Morgana. He was also worried about Ryuji, he wasn’t himself earlier in the metaverse. That said, this was too important. He had to save Yusuke from Madarame’s little sweat shop.

For the next hour, Akira sat down in the same wooden stool that Ann sat in last time. He had to wonder how Ann could possibly have sat down in the chair for so long. It was so uncomfortable! After an hour of sitting down and staring out the window, Yusuke let out a sigh.

“I’m sorry, the painting is not coming out as well as I had hoped.”

“Is there something wrong?” Akira asked.

“Hmm… It’s just, your expression isn’t the same as it was back when I first saw you. I get a sense of longing, as if you can’t stop thinking about someone. It’s not as beautiful as the expression you had back at the train station.”

“The train station?” What was Yusuke talking about? What expression was he talking about?

“Yes, that day you were with your boyfriend at the station. You had the most beautiful expression I’d ever seen when he held you in his arms.”

Akira’s face immediately goes red. “H-he’s not my boyfriend!”

“He’s not? Then it’s normal to blush when your friend holds you in his arms? Or to wrap your arm around your friend’s waist?”

“W-well-” He wasn’t entirely wrong. Akira did love Ryuji. But there was no way Ryuji felt the same, right? Ryuji just had no concept of personal space.

“I see, my concept of love must be incorrect. I need to learn more about love before I can pursue a masterpiece like Sensei’s Sayuri.”

Sayuri? That’s right, Akira got so caught up in the talk about love that he almost forgot. “Madarame didn’t draw Sayuri” Akira blunty told Yusuke.

Yusuke looks up at Akira, clearly annoyed at Akira’s accusations. “What are you talking about? Of course Sensei drew Sayuri! It is his most famous masterpiece!”

“No, Madarame is a sham, and I’ll prove it to you.” Akira walks away and heads upstairs towards the locked door.

“W-wait! Come back here!” Yusuke chased after Akira. By the time he caught up though, Akira had already gotten started on picking the lock. “What are you doing? No one but Sensei is allowed in that room! Not even me!”

Akira continued to pick the lock, ignoring Yusuke’s pleas.

“Listen to me!” Yusuke said as he grabbed Akira’s shoulder. It was too late though, the damage was done. The lock sprung open and Akira pushed the door open. “This is bad, we need to lock the door back up!”

Akira ignores Yusuke and goes inside, turning on the light and pulls out a fake Sayuri painting.

“S-Sayuri? But… But that’s impossible!”

“But it’s true. This is a fake Sayuri that  Madarame created. In fact, this room is full of fake Sayuris” Akira said as he pulled out another fake Sayuri painting.

“That’s… Sensei must have a good explanation for this!”

“No, he doesn’t. He’ll say that the real Sayuri painting was stolen from him. In reality though, it’s right here” Akira said as he pulled the cover off the real Sayuri painting.

Yusuke walks over and takes a close look at the painting. “Sayuri… This… is without a doubt the original. But why?”

“Yusuke, I know you don’t want to believe it, but Madarame has been making and selling these fake Sayuris for profit. And if you approach him about it, he’s likely going to get you arrested as well.”

Yusuke clicks his tongue. He certainly didn’t want to accept the reality of things.

“Madarame’s not home yet. You need to leave right away. Go out somewhere and pretend like you’ve been gone the whole time, I’ll make it look like someone broke in. When you’ve had time to think things through, I’d like to speak to you again.”

“O-okay, I’ll do just that. But what are you planning to do? What is your purpose in showing me all this?”

Akira adjusts his glasses. “Let’s just say this is a necessary step in order to change Madarame’s heart.”

“Change Sensei’s heart? Wait, then you’re telling me that you’re the mysterious Phantom Thief everyone’s been talking about?”

Wow, the rumors sure spread fast. He didn’t expect Yusuke to have heard the rumors already. “Yes, that’s true. I’m here to make Madarame confess all of his sins.”

“I see… I’ll do as you say for now, but just so you know if I find out this is a joke I’m reporting you to the police. Do you hear me?”

“Got it.” Seems like Akira managed to get Yusuke’s cooperation for now. That’s all that mattered. Akira went ahead and broke the front door’s lock before returning to the Metaverse to meet back up with Skull and Mona.

“Yo, you really kept us waiting, Joker. How’d it go with Yusuke?” Skull was certainly a lot calmer now. What happened between Skull and Mona?

“It went well. I showed Yusuke the truth about Madarame and then set up the place to look like a break-in occurred. Now it’s just a matter of time before-” Right on cue, the security systems were immediately disabled. “Quick, let’s go and disable the security system!

“Roger that, Joker!” Skull and Mona shouted before the trio went in and shut off the security for good.


End file.
